Legend has it Lincoln walked
for miles to return a couple pennies
he overcharged a customer.
He would have been a young clerk
in New Salem, tall but without
the beard we see in profile on all
those pennies sitting in saucers
next to cash registers waiting for
those of us who like change that
makes sense. How could he guess
a nation would put his portrait
on a coin only to phase it out
as of no value when credit
became the faceless coin
of the realm? Some banks now
are running short of pennies—past
their prime, we hear, too costly,
a drop in the bucket of business.
But look at them, the word liberty
hovers over Lincoln’s shoulder like
one of his better angels and all
we can do is wave good-by as
the fate of so much else we take
for granted seems as uncertain
as a coin toss. So when the last
penny is melted down and
Lincoln no longer lives
in our pockets and piggy banks
we will have to live with a deficit
on the balance sheet of who we are
and the kind, ever-present portrait,
facing resolutely forward, will be
lost beneath the dark cushion of time.