I tug off my glove and scrape at the coin stuck between the boards on the porch rail. My fingernail scritches across the grooves, catches, slips the penny free. A lost piggy bank treasure, found. Stinging cold. My thumb caresses, aching, pressing my heat into the coin, remembering its contours, chasing the lines, sinking into its shapes—until a little hand finds mine, clutches me like a treasure, flipping, bouncing, and I want to stay in this child’s hand, remember the contours of his skin, but the coin is in motion, like him, too quick, tumbling me backwards, between other fingers now, naïve fingers, gloveless and unknowing. I seek those familiar lines, scritch across the grooves, slip free, press what’s left of me into the shape of a woman who does not yet know loss.
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First published in Six Sentences on 17 May, 2021.
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