Not an ending exactly but

If we have to talk about it, I found myself years later on a bar balcony overlooking a college campus, radio rap in the air from some car and used bookstore poetry spread out in front of me like a map of living places, which probably it was. If I had thought about it, I would be sad that I never much thought about it, but then that’s a paradox worth ignoring. I took a sip of my beer.

The traffic sounds, the chipped paint tables, the stale smell of smoke in my clothes, they felt good. The same with it being about to rain, being boxed in by dark dragging clouds coming from the north and west. It had been months since I’d seen a building taller than the corn factory with the raised letters in what I guess was the bad part of town, and that was another thing to feel good about.

The rain began, smudging the words I’d written about Elizabeth Bishop, who was as lovable as anybody I’d met. Life is like that sometimes. Life is a gentle lie replacing the ungentle ones. But that’s just sometimes.

Where was she? I didn’t know. Wasn’t my right to know. It didn’t much bother me. I gathered up my poetry and went inside. It was early afternoon, so the place was emptied out save for a guy and a girl playing foosball in the corner, concentrating on the game with cigarettes hanging from their mouths, laughing. They were vital and young. Her feet slid along the scuffed floor as she moved between the handles. He could reach them all without moving. They moved together, and the small wooden men moved with them, and the ball made sharp noises against the sides of the table. I guess I thought it was pretty beautiful.