Discontinuing the Penny

Discontinuing the Penny

Bordering absurd, just how many 

miles the bluebird will traverse, back 

and forth with a pine needle or a rogue 

piece of lace, another cast-off thing 

refusing quite to equate, not unlike

my dad's repeated returns to Home

Depot to buy a miter saw and a project

plank, a pint of blue paint, gallons

of gas exhausted to spend what’s left 

of a Thursday afternoon building 

with his grandaughter an eight-inch house 

stuck on a copper pole with a hole. 

Despite our best attempts to balance 

accounts, what do we make 

of the fact that quite none of it seems

to add up, the remainder hanging  

around like loose pennies in a pocket?

How lucky, one day, we will know ourselves

to be, to have jingled a while 

in a world of such costly inefficiencies.