The Lost Glove Tragedies

The Lost Glove Tragedies

Photographed at the intersection of Avenue Philippe Auguste and Rue de Charonne, 11th arrondissement, Paris, on 1 February 2003.

In noting one, I noted many,
strung about the streets of Paris: single
gloves, missing their mates, lying on the
sidewalk, skewered on a fleur-de-lis,
placed upon a handlebar.

There was one I photographed, navy,
forced around the small orb of
a post in the eleventh, to the delight
of someone who loved me at the time,
although we couldn’t use the word.

Generally, though, I thought about the owner’s
discovery, getting home to his or her flat
five minutes from the nearest station, fishing
through pockets and finding keys,
phone, lighter, receipts and shopping lists,
cigarettes and something else,
but not the accompaniment to the floppy hand
lying on the kitchen table, staring back
and laughing.

Soon after the accidental
outset of my notations,
she became a fellow spotter, a detective
of singular loss (pointing: Mira, ¡un de tus perdidos!),
and as would happen, we
had trouble leaving work at work,
and found ourselves in spring, still looking,
still searching for a knitted glove,
a better way to make things fit,
a brief respite from that which was,
an avenue by which we might stop
all the yelling and the sex.