Permanent Loan

Your name is written in a hurried scrawl.

I found it behind a box in the hall.

Five years of Sartre, five years of dust,

a borrowed spine turning to rust.

I meant to give it back in the fall.

Now I’m too small to make the call.

There’s a coffee ring on page ninety-four,

a stain I left before I walked out the door.

I’ll pack it again in a new brown square.

A piece of your mind I wasn't supposed to wear.