Penny

It was an unlucky penny,
images ground down
by a life on asphalt.
Not a true copper,
the zinc shined on the rim
like the skin at the hairline
of a person using
tanning lotion,

effaced by truck tires
pressing the coin
against the pavement,
of so little value
that no one bothered
to pick it up.
It spent a few years
in a ceramic dish
on a dresser, then
disappeared into a bag
for another year
until it went to be reclaimed
at a coin collector
in a grocery store.

The collector rejected
the coin, not once,
but twice, perhaps
the weight after a life
on the road a little less
than it should be,
or perhaps an image resolution
failed because the coin’s face
had rubbed the sophisticated art
from Lincoln’s etch
into a child’s first outline.

Back into a pocket
it plunged, and back into
that ceramic dish,
until one day the penny
was taped to the bottom
of the leg of a dresser
to provide balance
on a crooked floor.