The park fountain is a dry concrete bowl today

The park fountain is a dry, concrete bowl today,

filled with brown oak leaves and the smell of rot.

I found a handful of nickels in the kitchen drawer,

mixed with rubber bands and a key to a door I forgot.

Down in the cracks of the basin, I see them—

the small, flat failures of everyone who passed.

A copper penny has turned green and fuzzy,

wedged tight where the winter ice made a split.

We throw our pocket change at the water,

hoping for a miracle or a change in the weather.

But the water gets drained and the pump gets clogged,

and the silver just sits there, getting heavy with dirt,

while the things we wished for stay exactly the same.