Luck by Sheila Packa

When we registered at the hotel
paid for the room
the clerk dropped change in our palms
and we split the Sacajawea coins.
Two women, two dollars each.
Liberty was emblazoned over her head
and on her left shoulder
In God We Trust
and on the flipside, an eagle flying.
The coins clicked in our pockets
as we opened the door of our room.
It was fortuitous, this goddess
bringing us through the wilderness
in that room where daylight fell
into the mountains and valleys of the sheets
and the soundtrack played “A Case of You.”
It was a cold March
and we were behind glass
looking out to Lake Superior
steam rising from the hot tub
feeding each other slices of oranges
and focaccia pierced by
small arrows of rosemary.
The flying-by clouds propelled the wind
that circled the earth and came back again.
We were in a river that could not stop.
I rubbed the coins for luck
and the woman whose face I touched
she led us onward,
explorers of the light,
not taking land
not trading in counterfeits.
We came up for breath on the river delta.
This was not luck but legal tender.
Sacajawea crossed our palms
and her eagle flew from the past
into the morning. We dove in.