The Debt

She held the plastic up like it was evidence

and told me I owed four bucks for a lost ghost.

Some book about wiring a lamp or fixing a fence

in a city where I used to live the most.

I flipped the card over to see the back.

The signature is a stranger’s hand,

all loopy and hopeful, a script I lack

since I learned how to simply stand.

It’s been eight years of moving around,

leaving bits of myself in various bins.

But the system is patient; it finally found

where my record ends and the debt begins.