I’ve given up hunting for the small diamond
I spent years predicting would meet
an unfortunate end. It stuck out too far
from the ring and caught on sweaters, purse straps,
and I didn’t know prongs needed to be tightened
and, well, I also knew I was careless and couldn’t be
trusted with gemstones or precious metals.
Nevertheless, I was shocked the day I
glanced at my hand and noticed it gone.
My search has been fruitless.
Three cheers for the one who finds it embedded
in his shoe some distant Sunday.
I can’t take a shirt off without losing
an earring and find it invariably camouflaged
on a carpet piercing my toe, which might
or might not require a band-aide or,
in the case of a vacuum cleaner, a
new bag. Cannot wear a beaded bracelet
without catching it on a door pull, snagging,
unstringing, or otherwise disappearing it .
I’ve taken to telling people not to gift me with jewelry
or any token of solidarity, love or protection
in the form of a pendant on a fragile chain
since chances are it’ll be discovered under
the floormat of my car the day I trade it in.
I found a skeleton key one time but the door
it opened had burned down, a mystery any
way you look at it. The sheet music
I buried under my brother’s upper bunk mattress
to avoid the annual family holiday recital when
I was 11, was lost for 15 years. I did not find this. My
mother did. The backstory is worthy
of another poem but in essence aligns with
a pattern amounting to my reckless disregard
and lazy pursuit of sentimental things, something
I find coldhearted and shameful today,
but true none the less.
Early Morning Poems 