Is This Yours

Three months I walked past it—

the lock around the post, the frame

going orange at the joints, the seat

gone soft.

I noticed it the way you notice

a loose thread on someone else's coat.

Filed it. Moved on.

Today: a note on the handlebar.

Paper warped from old rain,

tape become residue and edge,

the ink almost nothing.

The word yours still readable.

Barely.

In the last line.

The back tire flat and folded sideways

against the asphalt

like it had decided, quietly,

not to anymore.

Someone owned this.

Locked it here.

Didn't come back.

Someone else—later, different—

walked past it enough times

to write a note.

Is this yours.

I stood there reading it.

The question already past tense

before it was asked.