Steven Harz Music

A new cure

Each day I collect couch cushion pennies

Lincoln wheat copper zinc

in a dented tin bucket that I stored secretly

under our bed until the time came for me

to need an abandoned wishing well

Behind our house on welcome wooded walks

path tracks bridge brook

you gathered weeds and wildflowers

in turn of the century medicine bottles

and placed them on the windowsill to die

After we began declaring war on each other

I would sneak a handful and go

in search of soon needed hope but slowly

my pennies would disappear into the

back pocket black hole that long ago

stole gumballs and baseball cards

folded love notes and promised forevers

You began by using silence as a bargaining chip

and later your used anger like an arrow

finally you tried to push me away with your words

but your actions finally worked and the

result was indifference and to heal the wounds

that both of us caused but neither wanted

you emptied your bottles in search of a new cure

Following the railroad tracks

Baltimore Ohio Chesapeake Pennsylvania

with full bucket and empty pockets

I found my well and kissed each coin

before tossing it into our future

and as the caboose rolled past and

the view beyond was distant but clear

I saw you sitting on a fallen log

holding a fistful of white dandelions

against the fast fading train

scattering your own million wishes

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copyright 2013 Steven Harz

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