the coin

Days we used to gather, fourteen children
round my grandmother's stove
crisping bread coated in yogurt and thyme
and the smell of oranges gliding out of the fire
long nights of stories. On the opening of the year
like the swinging of a book, we cut the celebratory loaf
 made for the next three hundred days, odd with the unknown
full of envy, one would find a glimmering coin
coated in tin foil, for the ease of dough
dropped like a princess' cue for a groom, the prince
fourteen pairs of eyes set right and left towards the crunch of the coin
one winner of luck for the year.

Rummaging through the old drawer I find a sparkling bit of tin,
dated to the few opening days of one year when luck
was as abundant as grass. I flip the coin in my hand,
the metal is cold against the palm, its previous owner
the farmer who planted it is warm somewhere, yet long gone.