This Penny

I would not spend this penny

to buy the world,

this penny that caused me to

bend over in the coffee shop entrance,

my foot braced against the

steamed glass door as

the full pool of morning voices

and the liquid chocolate scent

of wellness spilled past me into the street,

while I removed my glove and

freed my fingers to lift this penny

from a crack in the walk,

not thinking of money at all,

but of luck perched in the air

like tropical birds,

of the countless heaven seeds

I have hurried past that

would have sprouted in my hand,

like this tarnished penny

that caused me to drop

my bag and my hat and to

become the silly man blocking

the coffee shop entrance

while people I didn’t know

waited in the cold,

annoyed or amused, fated to wait,

and one of them… was you.