Penny Picker-Upper
photo: my bedroom floor haha
by soft manicured hands
Flung into fountains
by whispering dreamers
Hundreds of footsteps
Trekked along the sidewalk
All of their owners
Too busy bustling
To take the time to pick up
A mere penny
Abandoned on the pavement
The scorching rays of sun
made my copper glow
And there I sat
waiting
Until one day
a little girl spotted
Abe Lincoln's shiny head
and saw treasure
Pinched between chubby fingers
An ebullient smile
Presented to a mother
I felt brand new again
The lady patted her head,
Sweetie, how wonderful
And my little girl
Was over the moon
A lucky penny
She murmured reverently
And I felt love
emanating off of her
watching and listening
the very next day
from a snug jean pocket
Daddy, Daddy
Was met with a horrible silence
and dismissed
by the wave of a beer bottle
It was the first time I tasted
Salty rain
She whimpered in the closet
Fisting me in a grubby palm
And I willed the mother to come
and make the downpour stop
But the closet stayed dark
I was soon slipped
into a ceramic pig's belly
a lonely clink at the bottom
echoing
but soon enough, others came
coins with stories like mine
pinging against one another
When it was starting
To get quite cramped
The darkness was smashed
Our prison was dead
And light flooded in
Crazed eyes
And greedy paws
Grabbed handfuls of my friends
and stuffed them in tattered pockets
E PLURIBUS UNUM
left among the shards
of broken ceramic
Soon enough
A young woman with
Dim eyes, barely there
Kneeled by the pink fragments
And sobbed into filthy hands
Until her eyes caught
a flash of copper
amid her shattered dreams
And cool metal kissed
warm, callused hand
Once more, I stared into
the tear-streaked face
Of my little girl
Now, all grown up
She smiled at me wistfully
Silent tears slipping down her face
And I was once again
Clutched in her sweaty palm
Held against her chest
while she remembered
Her hot breath told me
of a father's drinking problems
and a loving mother long gone
how there was no more money
and hunger gnawed a hole in her stomach
Oh, lucky penny I am!
I wailed bitterly to myself
As she ran a nail along LIBERTY
I yearned to give her more
Than "IN GOD WE TRUST"
How I wished then
that I were not
A useless copper penny
who could not even buy
a morsel to eat
Instead I longed to be
a crisp, green bill
for her
my penny picker-upper
(NOTE: E PLURIBUS UNUM means "out of many, one" and is printed on the tails side of a penny)
posted on: https://youngwritersproject.org/node/33685
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