Two Stories

*


There's a story


of a dark road where a man got lost

so badly he forgot where he was going.

There's another of a bright road

where a woman, also lost

took the wrong directions out.

These are the stories that raised me,

both the same story,

and my best explanation for urgency.

You have your own. I know you do.

But listen; there are only two stories,

Look out your window.

Tell me what they are.


                -Brent Allard

After Everything Else

*






After everything else

in January,

there are still strings of lights

blinking out stars and trees,

outlining frames of houses,

holding off the dark for

one more night.



The winter sky is clear enough

to almost see tomorrow.

I stood in the snow and tried

but my feet got cold too soon

to make it out.



What the last lights show best

is the darkness of other houses.

You walk with me now Love,

but I’m seeing when you won’t.

All I have to struggle with may

not keep you beside me.



This street is a thousand streets.

This evening it’s ours, but it will be

mine and yours. After different jobs and

other deaths and births and tragedies

we couldn’t believe right now.



You may walk this street in another city,

in another winter. You’ll still be feeling

everything this year took away, but it

will be under your skin by then, too

blurry to name anymore.



By then it will be an ache in your shoulders,

a constant pull to turn around. If you listen,

you’ll see the shape of me, or someone who

looks a lot like me, about to disappear around

a corner. Maybe you’ll love me again for that

familiar second and almost call my name.



but the wind will sting your cheeks

and you’ll think of a dark house in January

the night after all the lights were taken down.





-Brent Allard