For Chances

Every room she entered, she wasted
A tiny piece of inheritance,
A something that could have been something

Useful, or part of something useful—
When she started, after her father
Died, leaving her an inheritance

She’d had no idea she would collect,
She carried a roll of new pennies
With her everywhere, always leaving

One sequestered somewhere in each room
She entered, before she left, just one.
She didn’t find this satisfying,

So she began shopping for something
More inscrutable and unlikely
Than any shiny copper penny.

She noticed a manufacturer
Of cutesy porcelain creature tchotchkes
Such as ornamental elephants,

White, painted with dotted henna lines,
That could fit in the palm of a child.
She purchased an entire crate of them.

She always kept a few in pockets
And cases, and she looked for chances
To secrete one, just one, in each room

She passed through, so long as no one saw
Her quickly tucking an elephant
The size of a die or knuckle bone

Behind a bookshelf, inside a lamp,
Or wherever it was least likely
To be discovered and wondered over

Or tossed. And then her inheritance
Satisfied her—that she could squander
Just a bit of it amorally,

In such a completely pointless way.
And it always made her smile to think
About the elephant in the room.