Lost Name Tag

Just lying there, on the cracked gray,

a glint of metal, small and round.

A dog tag, silver, worn away,

no owner, no warm body, no sound.

A tiny monument to a name

I'll never know, a lost address.

Left to the sun, a quiet shame

of something broken, comfortless.

What good is a tag without the dog?

Just a cold, flat disc, heavy still.

Like a piece of an old, forgotten log,

floating in a stream against its will.