Bus Ticket To

It was the same white, rectangular face from
long ago that returned my stare as it lay
comfortably on the bed of my palm, in the
slumber of time, now almost transparent
just as it probably would have done when
my eyes were only as high as what I thought was

the mouth of the red ticketing machine and its
mechanical cough, the commuter’s irregular heartbeat
which I waited to share as my mother paid with her coins
but not without first consulting the bus driver, who to me
was always the man in the green shirt with his hands
on the frighteningly large steering wheel. Similarly,

I can’t remember every invidual ticket, but I recall
I once planned to collect hundreds of those slips
as though an incomplete, huge jigsaw of memory was
waiting for a contribution that would never have sufficed.
And I do know they made good origami materials on the way
to abacus or piano class - how I could fold hearts from

those worthless receipts is ironic; but how the threadbare
detail on each of them was so easily erased from memory
is no surprise- EZ-Link has made them less important, but
years have crafted more complex shapes from this creased
past, so they linger, the fine print inscribed on the ceiling of
my mind, and allege that remembrance is the law of existence.