Another penny for the swear jar.

Another garden of lit cigarette butts
burning some life into a dead lawn.

Think: fireflies to night.

Think of a round bit of neon
so far down the tracks
it looks like a train
is coming.

Try to remember the last time you saw a train
& didn’t wait until the last second to leap.

How beer bottles pop & scatter
beneath all that movement.
How coins flatten.

I don’t know if others still have their fathers

or if all houses inside us open
to a hallway of closed doors.

Another penny. Then a dime

down the well to see if wishes
erupt from the deeper places
our mothers forbade us play.

Perhaps it depends on the wish.