The Ticket

I dug beneath the photos of the dead

to find the card that lets me buy the milk.

I found a scrap of paper there instead,

a thin and serrated strip of yellow silk.

A dry-cleaning receipt from twelve years back,

for a wool coat that vanished in a move.

It’s folded tight along a grimy crack,

a piece of history I can't disprove.

The purple ink has faded to a ghost,

a name I haven't spoken in a decade.

It is the thing I think I value most,

the only debt that never will be paid.