The Story of the End of the Story
By James Galvin
To keep from ending
The story does everything it can,
Careful not to overvalue
Perfection or undervalue
Perfect chance,
As I am careful not to do in telling.
By now a lot has happened:
Bridges under the water,
No time outs,
Sinewy voices from under the earth
Braiding and going straight up
In a faint line.
I modify to simplify,
Complicate to clarify.
If you want to know your faults, marry.
If you want to know your virtues, die.
Then the heroine,
Who resembles you in certain particulars,
Precipitates the suicide
Of the author, wretchedly obscure,
Of that slim but turgid volume,
By letting slip:
Real events don't have endings,
Only the stories about them do.
Copyright Credit: James Galvin, "The Story of the End of the Story" from Resurrection Update: Collected Poems 1975-1997. Copyright © 1997 by James Galvin. Reprinted by permission of Copper Canyon Press.
Source: Resurrection Update: Collected Poems 1975-1997 (Copper Canyon Press, 1997)