A Toonie and Two Quarters

One Friday, at 3:30
on a sunny afternoon
I’d just tipped my last toonie*
to the server in the tea-room
and dashed out into the busy street

I crossed the hectic avenues
of Wellington at Huron,
stepped onto the far sidewalk
in front of Wild Willy’s Florist’s,
and saw a bright glint on the pavement

A toonie - beside it two quarters!
and no-one else was around

Finders keepers!

Happy at my fortune
I seized the bonus coins
into my greedy palm

then read the scene
another way
as someone’s else’s
misfortune

maybe the change
was meant to
make up
a teen’s or a younger child’s
bus fare and a phone call home

Were the parents pacing now?

or had the coins
escaped from pain-gnarled fingers
trying to manage bags and age
struggling to hang on to
those lingering days of
independence?

A toonie and two quarters
lost their shine for me

I left them there

in the sun on the sidewalk
in front of Wild Willy’s -
for someone else’s treasure
~~~
*
A toonie is the coin worth two dollars in Canada
as we have no $2 bill any longer.