My Father's Lottery
by Anne Panning
He sits in the Buick under buggy
streetlights. Scratch-offs shed
silver dust onto his jeans as if
they're molting. Later, he'll stuff dollar
winners in his underwear
drawer where they'll settle
like an insect's folded wings. Power
ball tickets curve inside his wallet, warm
and pink as the shrimp he wishes
he could afford for dinner. Each
night they accumulate in fragile
piles thin as the soft moth's wings
that hover against his battered
porch light.
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