For Billy Collins

Every year in September
The same small item appears
Lost
Among its more important neighbors.

Occupying its tiny plot
Buried well back
It always reads
Flooding in Bangladesh
Hundreds Swept Out to Sea.

It never changes
It is, in fact, the same story
Like the file footage
Of grocery store aisles
Broadcast after minor earthquakes

Except the losses are human lives
Not jelly jars and cans of Coke.