Circulation

I moved the rubber bands and the bent

spare key to the basement I don't use anymore.

There, under a receipt for a winter coat,

your name appeared in flat, sans-serif print.

The barcode is a gray, stuttered blur

where the scanner light hit it a thousand times,

tracking the things you'd rather hold

than my hand across a dinner table.

At the corner, the laminate is lifting.

I can see where you picked at it

with a nervous thumb, peeling the plastic

until it curled like a strip of dead skin.

I should throw it away, but the weight

of the card is the only thing left

of the way you’d go quiet

between the stacks.