Entry

I was digging through the taxes from five years ago

when I found the paper, yellowed and stiff.

It was the moment they stopped being a guest,

a legal shift, a weight off the chest.

In the corner, there’s a smudge of blue

where a thumb pressed down too hard or too fast.

The ink didn't dry before the page was turned.

It’s a mark of the years they spent getting burned

by the sun in the fields, making it last.