Old Mr. Ruiz on the corner of Vine
sold cigarettes, lottery, bread,
and kept a running tab in a spiral book
for everyone the bank had said no to instead.
He carried the block through eighty-nine,
through the strike, through the year of the flood.
He never once mentioned the money out loud.
He said, Take it, mija, and take the good.
They sold the building in the spring.
The book went out with the rest of the shelves.
And everyone on the corner of Vine
has been paying it back to somebody else.
This a fake test poem created by First Verse - it will be deleted at launch
