the meanderthal (NaPoWriMo 2020 day 19)

Today’s National Poetry Writing Month 2020 prompt was to write a poem related to objects found during a walk.

the meanderthal

a real-time archeologist
plays ambulatory tic-tac-toe
through the weakly-violated Cartesian grid of greater Phoenix Arizona
and collects
a Lug-Nut, a single Bristle from a Street-Sweeper,
a Tiparillo-Holder with Octagonal Cross-Section,
a Plastic Bottle-Cap with Grip-Ribbing, and–
O MY GOD!–a 1933 MERCURY DIME.

elation is displaced by S O R R O W
when the archeologist intuits
that the dime was left
deliberately by a
woman facing Death
who had no further use for it.