Fall to me, all you streets of Rome,
With your embrowned oils from torched walls and breccia of shadows,
The pizzicato of stairways and afternoon slowly closed
Like the thick, leathery-echo from this book of all roads.

Fallen, smoldering empire of storefronts and back-shop heirlooms,
Your lupine hills unbound with milk of cur in the wind and woods,
To your fallow fields rowed deep by a conquest of oars,
To the deepest silence and soot-muted oneness of Pompeii,
And a sky that is an ancient coin, without worth,
But still rubbed smooth at the edges by overfond lovers.

A small note attached to the small toe of the not yet dead woman
It read of sorrow and peace as she lay there still breathing
To why was she spread upon the iron table with eyes the color of coins
Displayed, surrounded by mirrors and windows ***** and unbreakable
Not a whimper slipped from her mouth as the small knife slit into her
Tearing the silk gown with precision of an artist,
the butcher masqueraded itself as husband
Emerald eyes shed no tears, reflexes halt to an end, an acceptance was reached
In her hands held a relic, one of the past and future. The piece was a watch
Ticking, counting down each second of breath. Belief in release the ******* death
Feeling of pleasure with each cut, the teasing texture of blood cascading downwards
How tantalizingly horrific the scene of sacrifice; a modern day alter
Rested upon rusted roses and sweet thorns the alive child laid
Silence for she has given voice to the goddess and the body to the God

in a moment of childish insurrection,
          i folded a coin in half.
using the godly, hulking, still-sitting vice,
          i placed the quarter into its cold palms

with each turn of the rod,
          the coin bent.
it rotated, the crushing iron force,
          the vice had no emotion, only strength

the coin warped, fighting, a steel bone structure
          pushing up against the silent jaws.
i kept turning, changing that reflection of george washington
          into an irregular, uneven, foul little thing.


it had lost its value, the quarter
          going from the 'almost half a dollar' state
into nothing.
          a strange, bent, dismembered corpse

a serial ******, with the body sent to the state
          this coin, bent. it had no value
a few cents in nickel or copper, (at most)
          but it didn't have any value before;

before it lost its sole purpose,
          its existence taken in (george washington's) its eye.
other than the fact that we gave it what it held important
          its 'purpose', its 'value'

so much for that

A coin is
A simple thing
Not much more than
A filled in ring
But it carries power
To make humans sour
So make sure
To avoid its sting!