End of Story

Grey head bowed at an antique
escritoire. A new page in his diary;
a sip or two of the ‘amber nectar’.
Outside, streetlamps stutter –
spring alive. Precisely when
did he get old? A definite date,
perhaps, he muses – flicking
through pages stretched back years.
If so, it eluded him entirely.

Nevertheless, he was young, once;
full of radical ideals. A connoisseur
of rhythm, yet it was a different
drum he’d tapped his foot to.
The clock, doggedly, ticks on –
mocking him with its steady beat
as, hand to chest – feels that pain
grips him, now and then.

Fingers a crystal paperweight –
‘“The moving finger writes...
having writ moves on,” Yours,
Tom’, engraved in florid script,
and a smile flirts with his lips.
He’d had his share of passion;
a brush of hands...clandestine
affairs...snatched, torrid nights,
in downtown, sordid dives.

The world had changed, though.
No ‘ifs’ or ‘buts’, if he could do it
all again. Bitter regret stings
his eyes, recalling a time, not so
very long ago, when loving
someone was a crime. Being born
too soon...his only misdemeanour.

Too tired to think, pours himself
another drink, as outside,
streetlamps shudder, so die.
Grey head bowed at an antique
escritoire; a new page in his diary,
and now his hands don’t shake
and his back doesn’t ache. Come
morning, his diary tells it all.
End of story.

.