COUNSELOR: Poetry Crisis Line, what is your emergency?
CALLER: The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
COUNSELOR: But would you want to?
CALLER: so many things seem filled with the intent / to be lost
COUNSELOR: So it’s conceptual art? Or more like, a gallery display of missing things?
CALLER: that
COUNSELOR: Wait—would that also be conceptual art?
CALLER: their loss is no disaster.
COUNSELOR: I’ve never been into conceptual art either.
CALLER: Lose something every day.
COUNSELOR: So do you start with socks and cell phones, and work your way up to extra pounds or a guy in 10 days?
CALLER: Accept the fluster
COUNSELOR: You lost a fluster?
CALLER: of lost door keys,
COUNSELOR: Now I’ve lost my train of thought.
CALLER: the hour badly spent.
COUNSELOR: Were you looking for your fluster? What is a fluster, anyway? Some sort of petticoat?
CALLER: The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
COUNSELOR: So you said.
CALLER: Then practice
COUNSELOR: How many hours a week do you practice losing? Or do you mean like practicing a–
CALLER: losing
COUNSELOR: –religion?
CALLER: farther,
COUNSELOR: Did you look in the corner? Maybe in the spotlight?
CALLER: losing faster:
COUNSELOR: If you lose too fast, it can be hard to keep it off. That’s why those fad diets, like
CALLER: places,
COUNSELOR: South Beach
CALLER: and names,
COUNSELOR: Atkins
CALLER: and where it was
COUNSELOR: Where what was? The weight?
CALLER: you meant / to travel.
COUNSELOR: Uh, from my hips to my chest?
CALLER: None of these will bring disaster.
COUNSELOR: I hope not.
CALLER: I lost my mother’s watch.
COUNSELOR: Was she watching? When you lost her watch?
CALLER: And look!
COUNSELOR: So she watched you lose her watch, and it was still lost?
CALLER: my last,
COUNSELOR: So you’re retiring?
CALLER: or / next-to-last,
COUNSELOR: Or thinking of it? It can be hard to quit something you’ve put so much time into.
CALLER: of
COUNSELOR: So what’s the biggest thing you ever lost?
CALLER: three loved houses
COUNSELOR: That’s impressive. And you don’t know where they gone?
CALLER: went.
COUNSELOR: Sorry—I was excited. Guess I lost my grammar.
CALLER: The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
COUNSELOR: So you say, but I’m impressed. I mean, you can’t just lose three houses in the washing machine.
CALLER: I lost two cities,
COUNSELOR: What, like Atlantis?
CALLER: lovely ones.
COUNSELOR: Like, um, Yerevan?
CALLER: And,
COUNSELOR: Did you try looking behind the foothills?
CALLER: vaster,
COUNSELOR: Behind the mountains?
CALLER: some realms
COUNSELOR: Behind countries?
CALLER: I owned,
COUNSELOR: You owned your own realms and you lost them? How big were these realms? Like the space between–
CALLER: two rivers,
COUNSELOR: Right. And how long were the rivers? A couple of miles?
CALLER: a continent.
COUNSELOR: Now that takes talent. And no one’s heard of it? Did the press come to interview you?
CALLER: I miss them,
COUNSELOR: And they don’t come back?
CALLER: but
COUNSELOR: So how do you lose a realm, anyway? Earthquake? Tsunami?
CALLER: it wasn’t a disaster.
COUNSELOR: How, then?
CALLER: —Even losing you
COUNSELOR: What? I’m still here.
CALLER: (the joking voice,
COUNSELOR: No, I take you seriously, I’m just blown away.
CALLER: a gesture / I love)
COUNSELOR: So if you love it so much, why are you thinking of giving it up?
CALLER: I shan’t have lied.
COUNSELOR: I didn’t say you had. It’s just—
CALLER: It’s evident
COUNSELOR: But if it’s evident, how is it lost? Is it, like, hiding in plain sight?
CALLER: the art of losing’s not too hard to master
COUNSELOR: Are you sure it doesn’t just seem that way to you?
CALLER: though it may look like
COUNSELOR: Exactly! It seems easy to you, but that may be because it’s easy for you.
CALLER: (Write it!)
COUNSELOR: Write what? Like a poem?
CALLER: like disaster.
COUNSELOR: So, a screenplay? Like Dante’s Peak? Or…um… Sharknado?
Read the original here.