Kept

Found the note in a jacket pocket.

Return M's Didion book.

Three years old. Ink half-gone,

adhesive strip gray with lint.

Book's still on my shelf.

Spine cracked at page forty

where I stopped. Dog-ear

marking nothing I remember.

M's in Portland. She never asked.

I never offered.

It sits between two books I own

like it belongs.

It doesn't. That's why I keep it.