Decimal Point

It escaped the pocket of my jeans

and sang against the asphalt, a sharp,

high-pitched ring that cut the rain.

I stood there with my keys in my hand,

watching it roll toward the iron grate.

It settled in a shallow, rainbow skin

of motor oil and grit near the curb.

Lincoln’s face is a tarnished, copper blur

staring up from the bottom of a puddle

that smells like exhaust and wet rubber.

I didn't bend down to pick it up.

I just watched it sink into the muck,

a tiny piece of a larger debt

that nobody is ever going to pay back,

left to drown in the runoff of the lot.