Steel Pennies

        I can scarcely imagine my grandfather's home
        just a porcelain nightlight, fragile
        as dried bone, dim photos, a torn
        drum of Tinkers Toys, yellow and split
        by so many young hands, the sweet
        sallow must of old age like air
        in a long sealed tomb.

        His curbside peonies were always in bloom
        but he stormed like a headmaster
        in the family room, a jar of hard phlegm.
        always at his side.
        Now, I can scarcely imagine

        the weathered general store
        that slumped alone at the edge
        of my grandfather's property, where once
        I glimpsed one steel penny, it bright face glinting
        from a hollow underneath the floorboards.

        That was an age ago
        when I thought nothing rusted.
        Where it might have gone
        I can scarcely imagine.