Poem written in response to a poetry class assignment with an image of pennies in a gutter…”your poem should include a subtle insight or piece of wisdom.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A penny face-up in the gutter— Abraham’s copper gaze half-lidded with rain. I pocket him like a secret, like the first digit in an equation no one taught me to how to solve. The laundromat coughs up dimes~ silver cataracts rolled under dryers, buried beneath lint and lost socks. I tally them in my palm, each one a tiny moon pulled from the tide of neglect. My grandmother saved buttons in a jar, swore they were pirate treasure. I collect coins instead~ nickels in parking lots, quarters wedged between bus seats, their edges bitten with teeth marks. When the year ends, I spill them all onto the kitchen table~ a metal harvest, a jingling autopsy. Enough for a coffee, a lottery ticket, or the weight of knowing that fortune isn’t a mountain but the slow accumulation of what everyone else steps over.
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