San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office 
is a cash-only bar: exact change, please.
I learned this when I went to pay the fee
for release of my car from impoundment

which was towed during Labor Day weekend
because of expired registration tags.
The evening after I got my car back
I thought of the sound the clerk’s stapler made

when she clacked my paperwork together,
how similar it is to when ice cubes
in an old-fashioned glass begin to crack

apart as I pour bourbon over them, 
           their modest explosions like a bullwhip 
           in the distance you did not quite expect.