Real name
Patrick T. Reardon
One-Cent wasn’t his real name,
just the name taped on him
by authorities who had their own purpose,
taped on the wood of his forehead
at a slight angle, trueness unimportant.
Tell yourself anything you want.
Don’t tell me you love me.
I am an unburied body for you,
the odor of rot to come.
Call me Stone. I am the metal ore egg
you want to split
like an atom.
Blessed mud! Blessed screech!
One-Cent keeps to the road before him.
They call him Penny Candy,
Loose Change, Lincoln Head.
They call him late for the photo,
late for the garden, late for the curtain.
Blessed finger! Blessed black mole!
Blessed water!
First heartbeat to last, debt and death,
One-Cent makes do with hints and guesses.
By the Traffic Building,
by the cement river edge,
let Sister Mother clasp me in her arms,
though she is younger and as sinned against.
Let us release our tether and rise on wind,
the beat of blood and breeze,
bitterbright epiphanies.
One-Cent is allergic now to masquerade prose.
He knows the darkness of words
and the light.
A branch off a foreign tree.
Blessed grit! Blessed sinner!
Patrick T. Reardon
2.22.26
This poem originally appeared at The Write Launch on 2.19.26.
Written by : Patrick T. Reardon
For more than three decades Patrick T. Reardon was an urban affairs writer, a feature writer, a columnist, and an editor for the Chicago Tribune. In 2000 he was one of a team of 50 staff members who won a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting. Now a freelance writer and poet, he has contributed chapters to several books and is the author of Faith Stripped to Its Essence. His website is https://patricktreardon.com/.