Receipts for Rainwater

There’s a certain rhythm in handling things that have crossed borders—dirt, glaze, paper: all carrying someone else’s mark. The scorched receipts feel brittle, like burnt sugar on the tongue. I stitched them down but didn’t want to hide the edges—left the flaps so you have to lift, as if checking under a mat for something that’s slipped through. The tile pieces—sharp, yes, but softened with thread—were hardest to settle. I wanted the thumbprints to stay visible, as if you might find the pulse of the person who pressed them. Here, rain stains aren’t a flaw. They mark time, how long the cloth took to dry, how much hands waited. I patched with market stripes—a kind of shelter, even sagging. The receipts and the missing-vote flaps: I’m not explaining them. I think about laying a table, folding a cloth to cover what’s tender. You don’t always need to say where the ache comes from. Sometimes, the thing you mend is only understood by the hands passing it on.