Fate
I step over a penny in the street
Dad you can’t leave it there
bring it home save it
it’s bad luck if you don’t
Okay honey I didn’t know
I pick it up promptly & drop it
through a sewer grate
Dad no!
she stops and stares
her hand over her mouth
Bring it on you bastard!
come and get me
I yell to whoever this vindictive
petty penny-pinching god might be
Michael Estabrook small press poet since the 1980s striving always for greater clarity and concision rendering language more succinct and precise more accessible and appealing a Sisyphean adventure for sure. Retired now writing more and working more outside just noticed two Cooper’s hawks staked out in the yard or rather above it which explains the nerve-wracked chipmunks. The Poet’s Curse, A Miscellany is a recent collection (The Poetry Box, 2019).