J. K. Durick is a writing teacher at the Community College of Vermont and an online writing tutor. His recent poems have appeared in Leaves of Ink, Front Porch Review, Poetry Superhighway, Algebra of Owls, and in the anthology, Along the Way. July 17, 2018When will we finally decide, resolve, step out, move on from all this. History always has trouble sympathizing; looking back on us they won’t be kind. I can picture a noted historian, standing at his/her lectern pronouncing judgment, analyzing step by step, trying to explain what we have done, did to ourselves; his audience quietly taking notes, revising events in their minds, knowing they would have done better, cause and effect work best when filtered through time, through distance. Let’s sit in the back row of the lecture hall and listen to ourselves described, things we are doing and/or not doing, watch them take notes, laptops open, the date at the top of the page, then the list of names, dates, events, see if they got our today there, today as we stand/sit ready to decide, to resolve, to step out, move on. SuspectWhen they come for me – and they will -- there won’t be all the noise and bustle we associate with such things, no sirens or flashing lights, or squealing tires … they’ll pull up slowly, first one car then another, enough; they’ll sit for a moment consulting files, talking, quietly planning their approach, two to the front door and one along the side yard to watch the back, as if I would light out the back door and over the back fence, off to a life as fugitive, a suspect on the loose, my picture on the evening news, last seen running through the neighbor’s yard, being chased by their chihuahua, the voice over would continue on to say that the fugitive is considered unarmed and harmless, but instead I’ll answer the door and let them in and will tell them what they want to know, not resist or light out for them territories ahead of the rest. It’s easy to imagine my neighbors watching my perp-walk and saying they were always sure they come for me, and evidently they got their man. Partiesand sometimes they go on too long, so long that
the point of it all is lost in a haze, and all the people, the original people you invited, you wanted to be there, have left and you are surrounded by some background characters you barely care to know, and all the rooms fill up with words, too much of too many things, smoke, spilled drinks, and voices so loud that they have become a symptom, something the neighbors will complain about tomorrow, if they don’t call the police tonight, like so many times before, but you have lost control of this, like too many other things in your life, and so you just let it go on, watch it play out, too tired to join in or stop it, it’s what parties become when they go on so long you forget why they are.
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