The Lost Check-Out

The green plastic slips out—cold,

slipping between pages

of a book with a spine cracked just so.

It lands on my palm,

old as the dust in this closing store,

smelling like rain soaked into cardboard.

Stamped 1982, faded name blurred

like a secret no one needed anymore.

A promise made to a book that carried it,

carried someone else's quiet afternoons.

I press it flat in my fist

while the shelves sigh under the weight of unsold stories.

I think of who held it last,

what fingers traced those letters

on chipped counters or under library lights.

The card flutters—too light, too worn—

like a dying leaf

drifting out of time.