Ginger Ale and Static

The receipt is thin as a moth’s wing,

a thermal scrap from the shop in the hall.

It’s a strange and heavy, useless thing

to find at the bottom of it all.

One ginger ale, one dollar forty-nine,

bought while you slept and the monitors hummed.

I thought we had plenty of extra time

while the fluorescent tubes overhead drummed.

The light through the blinds hit the floor in a row,

making the linoleum look yellow and bruised.

You woke up and whispered, 'I’m ready to go,'

and I stood there holding the soda, confused.

I asked if you wanted a sip through the straw,

but you just watched the ceiling and sighed.

That was the end of the law—

the last of the words before everything dried.