“Nickels!” The girl with suspenders

and an Aussie drawl is tickled.

“That’s so cute. You really 

call them nickels.” She slides

her handful of change freely

 

into the tip jar, cutely labelled 

“For our counter intelligence.”

Nickels lying on their little beaver

backs. There’s something, well, 

endearing about a country 

 

where one coin’s called a “loonie”

while its next-in-line big brother

is a “toonie.” Like we’ve all 

been drawn as characters 

in furry ears by Warner Brothers. 

 

Even beavers have a Disney 

air – our founding rodent, naive

buck-toothed precursor of the Mounties.

Boy-scout respectability.

Beavers even stood for chastity –

 

compilers of old bestiaries 

believed they had the habit

of biting off their testicles. 

Surprising we had any left

to put on nickels. 

 

Still, credit where it’s due – 

the beaver coined a basic

national characteristic: 

the stubborn re-building 

of dams. We keep trying 

 

to hold back the inevitable 

and keep our small pond separate.

We chew with animation,

not sure it does much good.

Still, it beats emasculation.