I used to think wealth arrived wearing shoes
that did not squeak against the floor,
some immaculate leather thing
with a driver waiting outside
and a woman named Beatrice
who knew whether the water should sparkle
or sit still and mind its business.
But prosperity, I have learned,
is often less ostentatious.
Sometimes it enters as rent paid early,
a ripe mango cut over the sink,
a silk robe on a Tuesday,
a bank account no longer speaking
in the mournful dialect of overdraft.
Sometimes it is the audacity
to look at a bill without flinching.
To be wealthy, truly wealthy,
is to stop acting like joy
is contraband.
I am learning this now,
as a novice of transformation,
standing before the old furnace of my life
with a ladle, a ledger,
and one eyebrow raised.
Alchemy, after all,
is not merely turning metal into gold.
Any fool with a good myth
can attempt that.
The harder work
is turning shame into language,
survival into estate planning,
grief into good posture,
and longing into a room
where the chandelier already knows your name.
I have become less interested
in being rescued
and more interested
in being properly invoiced.
There is a difference.
I no longer genuflect
before scarcity
as if it were a priest
with excellent references.
I have seen its vestments up close.
Threadbare.
Performative.
Smelling faintly of other people’s fear.
No, thank you.
I prefer abundance
with clean windows,
good olive oil,
fresh basil in a glass,
and an atmosphere so serene
Even my ancestors remove their shoes
before entering.
I want money that does not require
a theatrical apology.
Money that arrives punctually.
Money that is not evasive.
Money with manners.
Money that says,
Delia, darling,
you have suffered enough for character.
Now, let us discuss comfort.
And I, being gracious,
being devout,
being nobody’s impoverished metaphor,
will listen.
I will listen in linen.
I will listen in gold hoops.
I will listen while stirring cinnamon
into coffee
like a small, domestic spell
with excellent credit.
Do not misunderstand me.
I am not naïve.
I know the world keeps a meticulous archive
of women it tried to diminish.
I know the old structures can be
obtuse, derisive, mercurial,
so confident in their own obsolescence
they mistake cruelty for tradition.
Still, I persist
with a certain luminous defiance.
Still, I take the meeting.
Still, I submit the proposal.
Still, I write the book,
the invoice,
the doctrine of my own becoming.
Still, I choose a prosperity
so comprehensive that
it includes my nervous system.
A prosperity that lets my shoulders descend.
A prosperity with excellent lighting.
A prosperity where rest
is not a furtive act
but a constitutional right.
I am becoming fluent
in the accessibility of wealth.
Not fantasy.
Not the borrowed glamour
of someone else’s table.
The right to choose
without panic.
The right to receive
without making my hunger
more palatable.
The right to say,
I desire this,
and not immediately file a rebuttal
on behalf of my wounds.
Here I am, then,
apprenticed to gold,
not as an ornament,
But as evidence.
Here I am,
at the threshold
between what I endured
and what I intend.
A little irreverent.
A little sanctified.
A little amused
by how often the divine
has had to disguise itself
as paperwork.
I sign where I must.
I bless what I can.
I let the rest be handled
by forces with better staff.
And when prosperity knocks,
I do not ask
whether it has the correct address.
I open the door
in my good robe.
I say,
Finally.
Then I step aside
and let the whole house
learn how to receive–
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