[John Riley]

Before The End

You didn’t care what I said about change, were beyond
care or worry the night we pretended not to know
the way home and sat on the old car’s hood that sloped
down each side and leveled out over the headlights.
Sitting on my side, I wondered why you agreed
to be there with me or to be anywhere with anyone.
The skin on your face stretched over the strain
of anger that never left, trembled
amidst the thin late-night-dark.

Why did you hide from everyone but me, back when
we thought time was a pattern not yet understood.
I wish there were more to remember from that night
than the feel of the engine cooling, and trying to recall
if the moon was out, but it must have been, or how else
would I remember your eyes held mine
as we each slipped off our sides of the hood.

[John Riley]

I may have posted an earlier version of this. I don't think so but perhaps. I've worked on this for some time and am certain it's changed from earlier if I did post it.

[Max Goodman]

This is a strong picture, a memory of a last (or at least late) time with a friend or family member now dead, ending with a moving image of the two slipping away from each other.

Some quibbles:

The description of the hood sloping down and flattening feels oddly mechanical, less charged than the rest. It felt out of place on first read. The end felt like an explanation: that had to be there so the final image would make sense. Maybe that image works without it, though?

The grammar seems to put the "trying to recall" at the same as this encounter, whereas the sense puts it at the now, when the remembering is happening. Unless that's intentional for a reason I'm missing, it would be easy to fix.

FWIW.

[Chelsea McClellan]

Hello John,

I really enjoyed this. Particularly, the simple familiarity yet aptness of the final image.

I think I would second both of Max's "quibbles."

The one line I'm not sure is serving the poem is the first sentence in the second stanza. To me, it opens up more questions than the poem is willing to answer. And almost misdirects me to wonder about everyone else, rather than the rift between the speaker and the "you."

I also think the title could do more, lead me to want to read the lovely poem you've written. Also, I could read this as a relationship or past relationship with a rift caused mostly by the speaker, the "anger that never left" directed at the speaker. But the title almost makes me wonder if the end is the end of a relationship or the end of life. I wonder if you could find an evocative title that would also clarify this to some degree.

Take care,
Chelsea

[Trevor Conway]

Hi John,

I think this is a nice, interesting snapshot where the tone/language style holds up well throughout. The choices for line breaks were also particularly good, I thought. The only part where I thought a definite change was needed was at the end of the first stanza. The word "amidst" rarely works well in a poem, I think, as it usually sounds very self-consciously poetic, while the reference to thin late-night darkness had a similar effect. Is there anything else that could fit there?

I enjoyed this poem.

Trev