The Golden Coin

It’s a coin. Of course it’s a coin. They took the most sacred shape they had and stamped a price on it.

Read the rim. Those letters aren’t a prayer, they’re a denomination. Everything in this hall is priced in me, and I’m priced in you: so many hours, so many years, so much of whatever it is that makes you look up when somebody says your name.

There’s a kid by the far arch holding a rubbing of my face on a scrap of paper. Keep it. It’s the only copy of me anybody ever made for free.