How Meaning Works

The slip of paper wasn’t
Worth the cost of printing it,
Which was less than a penny,

Until magic transformed it,
And it became worth mansions,
Lawyers, charities, trust funds,

A terrifying value
In a scrap of cheap printout,
Easily torn and destroyed.

But you see, that’s misleading.
Nothing about the paper
Other than a few atoms,

Maybe, changed at all. It stayed
The same printed slip. Numbers—
Routine, calibratedly

Random, independent picks
Of numbers—as selected
Every few days, usually

To no effect, in this case
Coincided with numbers
On that worthless paper slip.

That’s all. Only the meaning
Of the slip of paper changed,
Far away from the paper.