When you lost that earring,
gold dropped in transit:
the seawater wallpaper
the room is too tiny for.
We search there for your earring,
call the other restaurants on the cellphone.
Some losses ramify.
You look at old photographs.
Your magnifying glass
in your other hand, you point
and you say: Here it is.
By now,
we’ve seen it a dozen times,
and discovered other things are missing too.
No sweater you own is that blue,
I’ve never had slippers, and neither of us
recognizes that lamp.
No fossil turns up regret
the way photographs can.
There is dwindle everywhere.
We bury the camera,
stay only in the present.
© 2011 Jody Azzouni