There’s a quarter on my carpet. It’s fallen out of a pocket. All I can do is stare at it. I’m afraid to pick it up, so there it stays. I keep thinking about it. I won’t stop, never mind can’t. So there it stays. Penny’s are lucky, but quarters? What are they? Luckier, you’d think. Better deal, you’d assume. More potential, ample possibility. That’s not what I think when I think of it, when I look at it, when I consider its place there, on the carpet. I think only that its there and what am I supposed to do with it? Picking it up would be an admission. Picking it up would prove its tangibility, which I can’t afford. The irony of this makes me angry, but I won’t touch it.
So there it stays.