I Lent You A Book

I lent you a book
You sent it back
Wrapped untidy scrawled
With multiple stamps
Inside is a note on a piece of waste paper
I fold the note once, twice, three times
And rip it neatly at the seams
Then I hold the book, smell it, there is only
Paper – it is fairly new –
Holding it so that the pages flop between the covers
I study their lines and notice
A patterned crease, a bending at certain
Places. Carefully I open you up at those,
Scanning, my expectations
Waiting to be proved, or disproved.
Either way, whether I understood you right
Or wrong, is past and done
We neither of us think we’ll see the other
Again.