Good Girls Go to Heaven; Bad Girls Go Everywhere
(a new dollar, a new stamp; 1979)
Susan B. Anthony’s on a dollar,
Susan B. Anthony’s on a buck.
Silver Susan’s the size of a quarter,
but her shape is strangely nipped and tucked.
You can’t use Suze in the washing machine
at your coin-op laundromat.
You can’t use Suze in a public telephone…
Stick her under your pillow and don’t leave home!
Susan B. Anthony’s on a dollar,
but Silver Susan is hardly ever seen.
If you’re afraid you’ll come unglued if you can’t find her,
try your post office self-service stamp machine.
Alice Paul is on a seventy-eight-cent stamp.
Alice Paul is hardly ever seen
except by that Susan B. Anthony dollar
making change in your post office self-service stamp machine.
~~~
Peggy Landsman is the author of two poetry chapbooks, To-wit To-woo (Foothills Publishing) and Our Words, Our Worlds, scheduled for publication by Kelsay Books in 2022. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in numerous literary anthologies and journals, including Nasty Women Poets (Lost Horse Press), Mezzo Cammin, Lighten Up Online, BigCityLit, and Scientific American. She lives in South Florida where she swims in the warm Atlantic Ocean every chance she gets.
the museum of americana: A LITERARY REVIEW 