A penny for your thoughts.

The strings of my purse are frayed from twirling,

constant,

Twirling leaves take flight in late September.

Opulence settles on the muddy ground in jewel colors,

something shiny lurks under a spotty robust yellow maple-leaf,

A penny heads, tails, heads, tails,

Heads turn as I dig my manicured nails into the squelching ground,

tweezers of my own flesh expertly pluck up the coin.

Damn it. Damn us. Damn me and the color chartreuse.

Tails.

You charge a Loonie these days,

inflation has jacked up the prices, like they did when they closed Sneaky Dee’s.

It used to be for free, the voice carried the purchase of your mind’s flow and ebb vibrating

across my collarbone, filling the lungs with echo, echo,

echoing only the emptiness of my purse.

The cobble stones are tricky, the different surfaces of granite, sanded,

rough roads under thin soles, the pennies slip through the cracks.

My eyes still search with greedy care,

The demand is high and the price is right,

right?

I’d give a million for just once to read between the lines of your

 lips.

Slips.

Well,

sidetracks are expensive mistakes,

you could miss the pennies, priceless pennies, like this.

I’ve walked the worth of the city, the shipyards, the markets, the factories and the parks,

marking the spots where I’ve left breadcrumbs of copper and cold, turned under, over,

and old.

Tails.

Heads,

I’ll leave it there, though

I’ll never walk fast enough with nowhere to go to turn

around enough pennies.

The shop is closed.

Artwork by Danielle Amorim.