This year it costs 1.8 cents to make a penny.
It is, perhaps, similar to spending an hour
on an eleven-line poem that very few people
will read. And still, they mint the penny.
And still, I write the poem. Because
tradition. Because poems and pennies
are easy to spend. Because sometimes
the small things make life better—
something to wish on, something
valuable beyond its surface, something
humble to catch the light.