Thursday, August 8, 2013

Pennies



A penny chiming against another; my pockets were full of them. Collected by pieces from the hot asphalt, on cracked cement. Two hundred more and I would be rich. Maybe then she'll marry me; maybe then she'll wear that dress I have always imagined her in.

The days grow shorter now. We till the night fields; at dawn, we lay down our hatchets, our machetes, our tined steel, and watch it all dissolve in a flurry of sleepless dreams. When you have seen the children ask, upon waking, what the dream of cotton candy meant, you know you have done your job, but who gets to see that? We return to our beds exhausted.

Yesterday, I counted the pennies again. And then sometime after moonrise, I caught her eye across the rows. She smiled. I am forgiven! Forgiveness and wealth equals happiness. I will ask her tonight if she will wait--only two hundred more coins, I will tell her. So close.

Now to sleep, before the hot sun bakes my little shack and I cannot drift off. A cup of morning mist, a blade of green grass. I dream.

1 comment:

  1. Too many dreams, they´re not economical. But maybe they have a function, serve some important purpose in our lives? I sure hope so. I berated myself for consisting of too many dreams, then I found dreaming people everywhere. People who seemed smart, grown-up, composed and together. And inside them were words, were poetry, were dreams. I still don´t know if it´s right, but I tend to feel most myself when daydreaming =)

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