It's just poetry, it won't bite

No One Left to Ask


01.16.18 Posted in today's words by

William C. Ross’ most recent poem to appear here was “Curtain” (March 2017)

No One Left to Ask
By William C. Ross

Dying flames flickered in the old fireplace,
and the hour was too late to add a log.
He leafed through the worn address books—
His, hers, theirs.
The names seemed to need an asterisk
and hyphenated dates.
His questions were not important.
It was just the matter of answers
that had tiptoed across the border of memory.
What was the name of his friend’s boat,
the big cruiser that welcomed two families
and glided easily down the channel
on summer weekends, to the open sea?
The owner said, “She’s yare.”
But what was the painted name?
And the football player in his history class
at the university, the one who was later
in the state senate, what happened to him?
If he called one of the numbers at random,
whoever answered would be too young to help.
“I don’t know. Mom and Dad never told me.”
All unimportant questions would go unanswered
since now there was no one left to ask.
He placed the useless books back in the drawer.
In the fireplace, imagined faces danced in embers
as he felt the spell of sleep closing in.



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