I walk through the park every day.
Sometimes I squeeze through the crowd and toss a coin into the fountain, longing vibrating through every molecule of my body.
I’ve done it maybe twenty times now. I wish for the same thing each time.
(I can’t say what it is, though— then it won’t come true. And I really need it to.)

Amid a cluster of intermingling people, I stand almost-alone;
Me and my coin and my one wish.

I wonder, sometimes, how much it matters.
If I’m just deluding myself and tossing  
pennies nickels dimes quarters
Into the water, emptying my wallet splash after splash in naive pursuit of something I know I will never have.

Small children join me in tossing nuggets of wishful thinking, their parents laughing at the naivete of it all.
I imagine a world where I don’t rely on a coin to shift my luck.

I wonder if I know somewhere beneath this self-deception that it doesn’t matter.
That no matter how many pennies I toss,
No matter how many stars I wish on,
No matter how many dandelions I blow into the wind, eyes squeezed tight with desperate desire,
Sometimes wishes just don’t come true.

But I know I’ll toss another coin in tomorrow. I don’t have to wonder about that.