penny in the dry well

penny in the dry well

copper on the bottoms

    of the grass stalks and up

        the shaft.  copper

on the mosses i walk on

    and maybe (it's

        unavoidable) nip

off with the heel tand read

    of my boot.  and too,

        copper in the wheat

penny, its weight true,

    truer, listen, when

        i let it fall and

its not a slug, a lump

    of nothing, it's pressed

        with a president's

head, it's not a fake

       a phony all polish

            it's scintillation in

-evitable until grub and plug  

    fumble to come up with 

        gravitas, like spring

reeds in recovery

        winter killed, hollowed

            last-seasoned

hauled to bonfires

        left to cool in April or 

                May or June through 

to late Autumn and past, way past

        a December noon.  and new waits

            her turn to be scythed &

planed & smelted down to fine

       gleam cooped or sent to feed  

            old wax relief

saving face one cent

        one cent one cent

                sun's rising up

over the top of this

        bald reservoir.  through

                last winter's breath

caught in the hollow 

        of the yard's vale 

                where once a dry

a well, where once

        a wish