I Wish I Had Kept the Receipt
Time. I bought it on the corner with the change in my pocket.
I packed the earth between my thumbs and kept the soft dirt from crumbling
Onto city sidewalks
Taking it home, I planted thyme there on my windowsill
The shoots stretching up out of terracotta
With every inch, I learn again
Thyme growing up
Time slowing down
I swear when you held me
We looked beneath time
And there you were with window panes and
Vintage frames of old gold
Riches repurposed that we lost between platforms
Of rats and tin-can treasures
The subway cars stacked by silence
Someone on a speaker warns
Monsoon
Yet here we are
And the sky is sucked between sewage pipes
The only monsoon
Was our beginning
And I think of you and I watch
The lights and I think of you
And I check my
watch
And I think of you and time
restarts
About the author: Ava Ford is an eighteen year old girl living in New York City. She is a young social activist and author. In her spare time Ava runs an online socio political debate network for women transnationally (onewomanoneworld.org) and is a middle school teacher of international relations. Much of Ava’s poetry work touches on both domestic and international issues, and how communities can grapple with solving them. Avahas a self-published collection of such poems entitled Field Notes, and is currently working on her second book.
