Ode To My Copper Coins Poem by Erica Brett

O piggy bank of precious gifts,
What priceless pennies do you hold?
My love suppressed within my heart
Against a world of lonely strangers.
They yearn for warmth but hide their heads,
And hurry past my open arms.
Their shoulders bowed under heavy winds,
Heavy heads,
Heavy hearts.
They close their eyes against the light
Of my candle guiding them home.
And each Embrace who is turned away
Is acid copper on my tongue.
I spit it in my piggy bank
To hide in shame in iron flanks –
My shame of love rejected.

But the Beast – He hungers with snorts and roars,
His belly rumbling for silenced Love.
Obedient, I give him more,
And break my heart to feed the Boar.
So day by day, I toil and cry,
And pennies spill inside His jaws.
He grinds his hoof into my foot,
Into my mind,
Into my heart.
And Love and Blood flow forthwith –
Red nectar sweet but bitter yet of icy pain to come.
Then down into the hungering pit
The copper coins are tossed.
The Belly bloats and groans with greed.
He sways and swigs and swaggers,
The copper whispers rustling.

But that Love – O my Love!
You were lost but not destroyed.
Weak alone, you came together,
And you filled the hoggish void.
And the Belly of that Boar
Stretched and swelled against your might,
But the Love kept pouring in
From the cloven Heart in anguished plight.
But the Heart – it pumped,
And the Belly – it shook,
And shivered and shuddered and SHATTERED.
O my Love you were released.
You sprang whole from His remains,
And you ran to meet the strangers,
And to embrace the world again.