I cannot hold this muscle, this lashed-out grit
turned limp. It tastes of metal and Vienna sausages
straight from the can. Straight down the middle, the heart
of the matter, what matter? Hold your tongue for me,
like mine, and pinch the penny between your thumb and forefinger.
Spin it on the kitchen table between
the neighbor’s dog and my grandmother’s dead cat.
Heads, cut your losses. Tails, well, the sky is incapable of such
untruths. Does the violet sky lose when the sun dips underwater, taking
all light with it? I wonder if pennies absorb the light
they reflect. If they fish strings of it from boiling water
to toss at the refrigerator door, see what sticks. The sun hides
in my pocket while the violet sky wonders if it should have been a bird.
Or a fish. Something with wings, fins, some way to direct
the falling stars upwards, back into the sky, away
from the gravel crunching under my feet.