Portrait of the Only Child as Bad Penny

The therapist listens to my autobiography and says

you are very resilient

. Let me live up to that. The zodiac

gives me a poisonous tail and a hole in the ground

to keep my soft insides soft-let me be

as formidable, as balanced as all that. A bad tattoo

of a good idea: serpent destroying herself

back to life, let me satellite my head a little

to drink up one last punchline, a final squawk.

In deep winter, let me be the squirrel scrambling

up the jack pine and the snow sparkling down as it tries.

Give me a chance to come back again, weed that looks

like a flower that looks like a weed, insisting between

the brick pavers:

I belong

. Let me be the bad penny,

bronzed to oblivion, just north of worthless, tossed

on a nightstand. God, rid me of this loneliness. Multiply

me. Give me as much of myself as you can.