The Last Checkout

The card is blue, or it was.

Now it's gray at the edges, worn soft

from years in a wallet, years

of opening doors.

I found it in a drawer today—

the barcode faded, the date

long expired. 2019.

Seven years since I walked into that building.

Seven years since I was the kind of person

who checked things out, who returned them,

who kept a record of what she read.

I looked up my account.

Nothing circulating.

No holds. No fines.

Just the ghost of me, standing

in the fluorescent light,

filling out the form with a pen

that belonged to someone else.

I could go back. The card still works, probably.

But the person who held it

is the one who stopped showing up,

and I'm not sure I want to meet her

in those stacks again.

The card is still in my hand.

I haven't thrown it away.

Maybe I'm waiting for her to come back.

Maybe she's waiting too.