share


Endings

Everything I’m writing has been short recently.

I don’t like to write endings. I’m bad at them.

 

Endings must have a stake in what happened,

and I’ve never been interested in what happened.

 

Where have we been? Endings ask.

Where must we go from here? They answer.

 

Some people, lucky ones, can only write endings—

as if forever in state of taking stock and gazing out,

 

as if to fall, to fear, these things could go on

indefinitely, as if shadow were just another word for shade.


ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR

is a writer from New York. His work also appears in Ambit, the Boston Review, poets.org, and elsewhere.



READ NEXT

fiction

March 2013

If Not, Not

Natasha Soobramanien

fiction

March 2013

This story may or may not end in Venice and in silent, unacknowledged tragedy but let it begin here,...

poetry

January 2014

Tuesday Will Be War

Jáchym Topol

TR. Alex Zucker

poetry

January 2014

Jáchym Topol (b. 1962), like most Czech authors of his generation, wrote poetry for years before turning to prose....

Interview

February 2011

Interview with David Vann

Marissa Cox

Interview

February 2011

I am a little apprehensive about meeting David Vann for the first time. His father committed suicide when David...

 

Get our newsletter

 

* indicates required