The Unpaid Debt

You called to say you wrecked the car again

and asked if I still had that spare five-hundred.

I looked at a photo of me at five,

standing on the curb in a yellow coat,

looking for a bus that hadn't even been built yet.

I was born with a clip-on tie and a map.

I remember the plastic tricycle in the yard,

filmed over with frost like a cataract.

Nobody moved it.

I waited for the sun to melt the ice

so you wouldn't slip when you finally woke up.