The Fine

The book was a brick of sodden paper,

heavy and smelling of the gutter puddle.

I shoved it deep in my backpack's dark,

and told the librarian I'd left it on the bus.

Her eyes went small, two beads of glass.

She didn't call me a liar, she just sighed,

and the weight of that water-damaged spine

has lived in my shoulders for twenty years.

I saw a kid lie about a broken swing today

and felt the ghost of that damp, grey ink.

Some debts don't care about the statute of limits;

they just wait for the lights to go out.