Lincoln Penny

"It's not the years in your life that count.
It's the life in your years."
         -Abraham Lincoln

Every stranger is a penny
you either pick up or pass,
head or tail however the outcome.
Maybe you become close,
lovers even,
or you end the day
one cent poorer in emotion.
I may have passed hundreds,
even thousands,
with little intent of knowing
what to make of them.
I don't understand my scope or range.
Are the people I've hurt
the ones who cared the most?
I will never know.
Will an unnamed man reveal himself
at the time of my burial,
mentioning how I helped him
and that he never had a chance
to thank me?
And how many pennies
get washed down the sewer in the rain,
growing green as if they turned to seed,
waiting to reemerge
as a blossoming fortune in a child's eyes?
Who will I have touched?
I may never know for sure.
Kindness and ignorance both
work themselves out in the end,
like the flipped sides of a Lincoln penny
that you don't get a choice in calling.