Written by Megan Munger
I can’t remember how it happened — Dad or I stood
on the hospital’s second story, a few feet
from the glass elevator looking down
at the cafeteria, at a wishing well in its center.
Dad dug clumps of change
from his jean shorts. I sifted
silver to find pennies.
I was nine. We waited
for little brother to grow.
By summer’s end, I’d grown enough to see
over the ledge without leaning. Most
of the one hundred days, we aimed pennies
at the wishing well, scanned the floor
when we fell short. But once he let me drop a penny
straight down into the bald spot
of an anonymous old man, duck behind
the ledge as I tried to stifle giggles.
My hand clamped across my mouth,
Dad grinned down at me, helped me stand.
I smiled as I skipped away
to the Neonatal Hall. Dad walked fast behind.
.
Megan Munger is a Pacific University MFA Candidate. She received her MA in English from Pittsburg State University. Her poetry has recently been published in The Paddock Review, Hawaii Pacific Review, The Closed Eye Open, Porcupine Literary, and Tipton Poetry Journal, among other literary magazines and anthologies.