The penny I dropped rolled under the couch
And on my hands and knees
I groped for the thing—
It was my mother’s
Who’d been gone thirty years
A gift from her father
Who taught her to shoot
And left her alone on the farm
A girl of ten—saying:
“Shoot first, ask questions later”
She sat with a pistol in her lap
When her father returned
He paid her—so this coin
Beneath a hotel sofa
Represents fear and triumph
Which I dare not let leave behind…
Planet of the Blind 