(For a penny minted in 1916)

I wonder how many hands you had to pass through to get to mine.
How many coin purses,
give-a-penny-take-a-penny trays,
cash register tills,
how many coin rolls?

I wonder about the years you’ve seen,
and the places you’ve been.
What are the chances you’ve spent
your whole existence
in this city,
this state or
even this country?

Has your feathered tail traveled overseas
in the pocket of a tourist or a soldier
off to any of the wars
(or possibly all of them) since Wilson presided?
Might you have been carried by James Dean
as a child walking to the store
to buy some penny candy?
Might you have been given as a reward
to a child, or to generations of children?

How many people with no other discernible connection
could be linked simply by their possession of you?
(Or, considering how many of your carriers you’ve likely outlived,
perhaps they’re linked by your possession of them.)

Whose skin have you touched?
What purchases have you helped afford?
What adventures must you have endured
to attain such a weathered face?

How did you bear seeing your utility dry
to the point that a child can’t even use you
to ransom candy from a penny vendor anymore?
Your once proud copper image, now reduced to
biding time in ash trays and couch cushions
until someone seeks you in desperation
(or until you are summoned by the vacuum cleaner).

What are the chances you’d not have found yourself
in the bottom of a river or lake or ocean, and if you have,
what would be the chances you’d find your way back?

How is it you’ve escaped the fate of your poor cousins
mutilated by the souvenir penny grinders?
How many of your brethren born the same year
are liable to thrive (or even exist) these years later?
Is it accomplishment or sorrow, seniority or old age,
you feel as you see all the newer, shinier models
rolling out every year.

And as you hear of other old coins kept by collectors,
valued at thousands of times their face,
do you find yourself green with envy (or just corrosion)?

Or perhaps you just soldier on,
resigned to serve whatever purpose you can,
however seemingly small,
satisfied,
knowing
you’ll probably outlast us all.