Bad Penny

After the Peace of Ghent

he took the streetcar

half-way home, transferring

at Grand Blvd. The sky

hung just above the elms

and now and then a star

broke through. Near dawn

after the last cigarette,

a warm wind and the snows

hushing, wind tugging

at his long coat,

and he started to walk.

The school yard silent,

the first green

shining through, the pond

he skated once, small,

gray with floating curls

of newspaper. He climbed

the fence, heaving up

and over. Block after

block of brick flats

and nothing moving until

a cardboard suitcase

spilled its tripe

in the snow.

I turned :

to say What happened

or Our Father

but he was gone,

the streetlight dimmed

in the first flush of day,

the star gone.

e

After I die

go out and dig all morning

in the garden, working

your scarred hands

down through the light loam

until you find that root

like wood, like the four

walls of my life,

until you find

the bad penny I paid

the earth, and rub

its face for luck

and shine it with spit

until it glows again.

Structure

47 lines · 4 stanzas