please forgive us 

we were desperate for quarters.
my brothers & i had spent all afternoon
fishing in the dryer for coins & then 
scouring the streets. the world is made
of pennies. we stacked the brown coins up 
like tired little houses. we hypothesized 
that our own house was probably made of pennies.
in the other room our baby brother cries
& rocks bacfk & forth in his electric swing.
he stares up at the ceiling as if 
he knows it's made of pennies too.
we want him to stop crying. we stand around him.
our parents aren't home. they have turned sidewards 
& become portraits inside pennies.
i tell my brother that when i was tiny
i swallowed a penny. i felt the cool metal 
as it plumetted down my throat.
we wanted to buy ice cream. we had
a dollar in pennies. you have to promise 
to not judge us for this next part.
you have to understand that children 
are so hungry especially in summer. 
we put our brother in the red wagon.
he stopped crying as he gazed at the dazzeling sun.
we walked all the way to the park 
where we went around to see if anyone 
would buy him. the squirrels inspected
his thick arms & agreed he wouldn't last in the trees.
some mourning doves cooed,
trying to teach him their sound.
=i explained that he was a new baby.
he was smart & brilliant. he was the next
beautiful everything. it is easy
to carve out pieces of yourself 
to sell but it is harder to fill those pieces in
with something other than a purchase. 
we dreamed of dishes of half-melted vanilla soft serve.
our baby brother wriggled like a grub.
my brother asked what we would tell our parents
if we sold him & i told him 
to worry one step at a time.
finally, the ferral cats brushed up against his face.
they purred & kissed him with their coarse tongues.
ready to keep him, one cat lifted him up
by the back of his onesie. the cat whispered about
how soft & pink he was. i reached out one finger
for him to grab onto as a sort of goodbye.
both my brothers cried & another cat openned her mouth
to spill quarters on the ground. 
they scampered away with him.
we filed our pockets with the change, 
nearly twenty dollars in quarters. 
we sat on a bench for awhile. birds rustled 
inthe branches. a breeze shook the playground mulch.
thinking about what we had done, we drifted away 
from our bodies. we were terrible siblings.
filled our palms with coins.
they felt heavy & real. 
we swallowed the ice cream in desperate gulps
& decided to tell our parents he was stolen
by cats. ordered more ice cream.
it melted down the backs of our hands.
all the cats in the world were walking on the ceiling
of the ice cream parlor. they were carrying him
deeper into the woods. how could we
sell our brother? we remind ourselves
he was so loud & so fierce. his cashew legs kicking.
at home we waited in the quiet of the living room.
out the window we saw 
an orange tabby cat staring inside.
shutting the electric swing off,
we stacked the quarters on the kitchen table
to split evenly between us.