The Ring Drops

It leaves the hand without a sound, a small gold circle, brief and bright, and finds the floor, the grass, the ground— a promise slipping out of sight.

It rolls once, twice, then comes to rest against a stone, a crack, a seam, as if the metal, unimpressed, had never meant to keep the dream.

You kneel. You search. The light is thin. The day goes on. The world won’t wait. The ring drops once. What’s lost within is harder than the thing you late.