Value

The leather is the color of a bruised plum,

stiff and peeling at the corners

where he used to thumb it open.

It smells like a peppermint

dissolving in a pocket of warm wool.

Inside, behind the window for the ID,

is a card from the auction in ninety-one.

He kept the price of steers

noted in a cramped, shaky hand,

three hundred dollars for a life

that’s been gone for thirty years.

I put it back in the box

next to the forms for the IRS.

The leather is still cold

from sitting in the dark

since the winter he died.