Proof of Purchase

The temperature dropped twenty degrees

so I pulled the wool coat from the closet.

Deep in the pocket, behind a linty mint,

I found the diner slip from last November.

Two coffees. Two plates of eggs.

We sat too close to the floor heater

and the thermal paper scorched,

the ink bleeding into a black, oily smudge.

It’s a record of a morning

spent trying to talk through the static.

I hold it to the light, but the names of the food

have vanished into the heat.