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I found it wedged behind the heater tank,

a brick of names that smells of dust and damp.

The ink is fading on the sorted rank

of people living by a street-side lamp.

I pulled it out to level off a shelf,

and felt the paper tear beneath my thumb.

I saw a ghost I used to call myself,

a girl whose name has finally gone numb.

Her number’s there, a sequence of the past,

on paper thin as any moth’s dead wing.

The glue is dry, the binding didn't last,

and no one’s left to hear the damn thing ring.