Art: Molten Chrysanthemums by John Chavers
FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS
Found my very first dime
Early one morning on my way to work.
Shimmery like a supermarket Our Lady of Guadalupe
Jar candle whose wax had reached the base
The coin lay shrouded by discarded comedy club flyers
Advertising comics that weren’t funny
And burgers regurgitated by college students
Cramming for exams, on their way to dropping out.
A trampled crossroad of a thousand journeys
In the palm of my hand, on FDR’s face.
Five more came my way sprinkled about
In the room my friend was staying at in her aunt’s house.
It was her cousin’s childhood bedroom
And wasn’t sure whether the found change was hers or his.
Leaving behind her relatives mercurial neurosis,
And safety and discomfort of the familiar felt cathartic.
I gathered the change, as she let go of the same;
Left behind the quarters, nickels, and pennies
And took the dimes.
After the eighth, a new deal popped into my head:
If I’m lucky enough to find 12 more,
What would happen if I bought a lottery ticket with them?
This purchase would surely yield a million-dollar win.
A stream of two— one heads, one tails—
Poured from under my best friend’s passenger seat
On our way to discuss his polyamorous relationship over coffee.
Had it been 1920, I would have offered to pay for the first round.
But it was 2018,
So I stole them away, from my clenched fist to my pocket
Before he noticed that I had cheated him under his nose.
It had taken me 9 months to get to 13
And two years and 3 months more to reach 20.
Only, I was amazed to realize that I had amassed 21 in total.
I pitched the extra coin— a sacrifice to the winged god in whom we trusted
Until the end of World War II— into a homeless man’s cup,
One who for as long as I could remember, had been asking me for change
Never tiring of coming out empty-handed, never losing his faith in me,
That one day I could change into a decent, charitable person.
I bought the Mega Millions ticket from a man hesitant to count
The spill that clinked and jingled incessantly on his glass counter.
None of my seven lucky numbers matched a single one of the winning.
Maybe the next twenty, silvery pieces I find—
A discounted Messiah’s worth—
Will be luckier.
About the author:
Jose Oseguera is an LA-based writer of poetry, short fiction and literary nonfiction. Having grown up in a diverse urban environment, Jose has always been interested in the people and places around him, and the stories that each of these has to share; those that often go untold.
His work has been featured in Meat for Tea: The Valley Review, Rigorous, Sky Island Journal, Jelly Bucket, OTHER. Magazine, TOE GOOD, The Scene & Heard Journal, The Inquisitive Eater, and Authorship by The National Writers Association.
Art: Molten Chrysanthemums by John Chavers, first published in Driftwood Press Issue 5.1, Winter 2017.
In the artist’s words:
John Chavers enjoys working as an artist and photographer. His work has been accepted for publication at Cream City Review, 3Elements Review, Whitefish Review, JuxtaProse, Camas Magazine, Stonecoast Review, Permafrost Magazine, and Glass Mountain, among others. This April he will be a guest artist with The Association of Icelandic Visual Artists (SiM) at Korpúlfsstaðir in Reykjavík.