What slides away

My transit card

fell from my pocket

and went straight down.

No hesitation.

No bounce or deflection.

Just dropped

through the grate,

turned sideways,

and disappeared.

I knelt.

Looked into the darkness.

I could see

the corner of it,

blue plastic,

half-lit by the street lamp,

resting on something

I couldn't identify,

something wet,

something wrong.

I tried reaching.

My fingers too big.

The grate too small.

The space between us

exactly the distance

of one mistake.

A man stopped.

Asked if I'd lost something.

I said yes.

He asked if it mattered.

I said no,

and he kept walking.

The card is still down there,

probably.

Or maybe the current took it.

Maybe it's in the sewer,

traveling beneath the street,

toward some place

I'll never reach.

I stood up.

Kept walking home

without it.