Non-Refundable Balance

There is three dollars and fifty cents left

on the magnetic strip of this plastic card

buried in the silk lining of my suitcase.

The news says the sleet is turning the streets

into a gray slurry of salt and frozen oil,

but I am three states away in a dry room.

I remember the diner near the elevated track,

the windows so thick with kitchen grease

you couldn't see the trains passing by,

just the vibration in the copper-tasting coffee.

That money is a ghost, a tiny debt

I’m never going back to collect.