The End

 

 

The End

 

 in the hills, crickets and necessity call

on summer’s evenings

soft. constant. but no train whistles wail

clarinet-like, wafting through windows

in the still of night

 

the stars are brighter here

but where’s the rush of Friday-night laughter

like a goose or constipated Adam Sandler, and what of sputtering engines

and headlight processions?

all I hear are distant trucks, which the hills eat up

 

pines sway on stormy nights

and rain whispers a hushed lullaby

but where are the butter-colored lamps

that blurred on clickety-clacking sidewalks,

a glow through blackened skies

 

I live at the end of a country road

necessity needed me

of course, they say the end of a road’s always best

but sometimes you need one train horn

one neon sign from a bar

 

one ballad bawling from a pink and purple jukebox

and people knowing your name

but all too soon they’re just flickering

like fireflies on a warm June night

 

things you run to catch

before you trip in the dark

and can’t get up

 

Yashar Seyedbagheri

Yash Seyedbagheri is a graduate of Colorado State University's MFA program in fiction. His stories, "Soon” and “How To Be A Good Episcopalian,” have been nominated for Pushcarts. He has also had work nominated for The Best of the Net and The Best Small Fictions. A native of Idaho, Yash’s work is forthcoming or has been published in The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Write City Magazine, and Ariel Chart, among others. Yash lives in Garden Valley, Idaho.