Renewed

I carried the old one since two-thousand-and-three,

the laminate soft where I'd fold

it back into my wallet, the barcode worn nearly free

of its ink. I didn't know it had gone cold

until I set it on the desk today.

The librarian tapped her screen and said

expired. She offered a new one. Okay,

I told her. She pulled out a form instead.

A card so white and stiff it cut the air.

Same name. New number. Nothing to align it

with the years the old one carried there—

three apartments, the dog we had to return. I signed it.

I put them both in my pocket. I don't know why.

The new one will become the real one.

That's just how it works. That's how things die

quietly, in a wallet, undone.