Driving permits from late-1940s England
and every license ever since
Insurance cards
and even traffic tickets
just in case
A trade – exams failed, exams passed
first house
then a second
Mortgages, but never for too long
before being discharged
Invoices, bills, and receipts
all marked “Paid”
and the date paid, too,
as if to seal the deal –
beholden to no one
Membership cards
Personal histories and “family records”
travel brochures
(though never to Canadian places)
and poison-pen letters
“I was here”
A paper trail
of a life
not so much lived,
as catalogued