A coffin is an envelope
for sending off the body.
We do not have a body.

We have the skeleton of a balloon.
We have our breath, white on the window.
We cannot see through it.

In Japan, five- and fifty-yen coins
are hewn with holes in the center.
We can see through them.

These are the coins considered
lucky. Imagine that—a thing
missing its center is what’s lucky. 

I dreamed of a coffin filled
with five-yen coins, 
so heavy we couldn’t lift it.

When I woke, I took two five-yen coins
and sealed them in an envelope. 
Absent of center, granting passage-

way to light, lucky—if that is 
luck—these are the coins I would 
place over his eyes, if we had a body.