This Isn’t

by Lawrence Bridges

You’re playful but maybe you should focus
on last words. This light in your window
isn’t on a timer for Christmas. Outside lights,
Yes. Whoever lives in this house will see
its gingerbread lines and, in fact, might
sleep in your modest workroom, stripped of books
degrees, and mementos. This is a morbid street.
The voice you might hear from my grave
would curse the left-turn cheaters at the three-
way intersection at Chautauqua and PCH.
Have they fixed that? Take any episode
of aspiration, the perpetual motion machine
on the bench in the garage, the wish
to be happy, to play Bach perfectly
and say, ‘this is where I stop’. Terminal event.
Ends in darkness. A dark window
maybe a music room now. I would be playing
with feelings of regret and sadness.
But that is the end. This isn’t.

Lawrence Bridges’ poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, and The Tampa Review. He has published three volumes of poetry: Horses on Drums (Red Hen Press, 2006), Flip Days (Red Hen Press, 2009), and Brownwood (Tupelo Press, 2016). You can find him on IG: @larrybridges