Alison Stone: “So It Goes”
SO IT GOES
Dark feeds the forest, secret-filled and deep.
Teen sweethearts kiss beside the moon-glazed lake.
What we burn for we rarely get to keep.
The night tightens its cords of loss, mistake.
Teen sweethearts kiss beside the moon-glazed lake.
The future’s standing closer than they think.
The night tightens its cords of loss, mistake.
Nothing to do but pay the bills and drink.
The future’s standing closer than we think,
a stark gray room where youth and romance die.
Nothing to do but pay the bills and drink
once touch turns cold and the heart’s threads untie.
A stark gray room where youth and romance die.
Lined skin, cracked glass, rough voices raised high.
Once touch turns cold and the heart’s threads untie,
learn how to fake a nonchalant good-bye.
Expect lined skin, cracked glass, rough voices raised high.
What we burn for we rarely get to keep.
Learn to fake a nonchalant good-bye.
Walk toward the forest, secret-filled and deep.
Alison Stone has published seven full-length collections, Zombies at the Disco (Jacar Press, 2020), Caught in the Myth (NYQ Books, 2019), Dazzle (Jacar Press, 2017), Masterplan, a book of collaborative poems with Eric Greinke (Presa Press, 2018), Ordinary Magic, (NYQ Books, 2016), Dangerous Enough (Presa Press 2014), and They Sing at Midnight, which won the 2003 Many Mountains Moving Poetry Award; as well as three chapbooks. Her poems have appeared in Paris Review, Poetry, Ploughshares, Barrow Street, Poet Lore, and many other journals or anthologies.