36-14-22 or Whatever It Was

The app asked me to create a PIN

and my hands typed thirty-six

before I'd thought about it —

fourteen, twenty-two. The fix

was done before my brain arrived.

Those numbers. That particular cold

November handle, stuck a little,

the scuff on the lower left. The old

hallway smell, the clock above

the fountain running slow.

I haven't thought about that locker

in fifteen years. And yet I know.

The hands know. Somewhere in me

is a seventeen-year-old kid

who only knew three things by heart:

their name, their address, the grid

of numbers on a combination lock

that's probably been reassigned

a dozen times by now.

The bank is still waiting.

My hands already signed.