Brian Beatty
Five Birthdays
It wasn't so much the smell
of pipe smoke as it was
the scent years of fresh,
damp tobacco had left
in a pocket-sized
black leather pouch
that zippered across the top.
I carried my coin collection
around in that pouch
along with a .45 bullet I'd found
I can't remember where now.
Origins continue to be a mystery to me.
The silver war pennies inside
were gifts from family.
Bio
Brian Beatty is the author of the poetry collections
Borrowed
Trouble, Dust and Stars: Miniatures (Cholla Needles Press, 2019 and
2018),
Brazil, Indiana: A Folk Poem (Kelsay Books, 2017) and Coyotes
I Couldn't See (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2016). His jokes, poems,
reviews and short stories have appeared in numerous publications,
including The American Journal of Poetry, The Bark, Cholla Needles,
Conduit, CutBank, Dark Mountain (England), elimae, The Evergreen
Review, Forklift Ohio, The Glasgow Review of Books (Scotland), Gulf
Coast, Hobart, Juxtaprose, Lake Country Journal, McSweeneys,
Midwestern Gothic, The Moth (Ireland), Museum of Americana, NOON,
Phoebe, Poetry City USA, Publishers Weekly, Quail Bell, The
Quarterly, Rain Taxi and Seventeen, among others.