Josh's Alan

When we’ve learnt to stay apart is when we can come back together again.

There’s a woman’s face against the marble wall and that’s the sound of the accordion she’s playing. The harpsichord next. The songs she plays, they remind you of when you weren’t seventeen. It’s not like it was when she was really there -- that’s not to suggest that she’s all here right now -- and me?

I’m pregnant on another one, it’s going to be a boy and he will take my place and his son his. When I’m a great-grandfather I’ll have a heart made of perfume and pinecones, but mostly just a bottle of wine on the corner of the street again.

You said “we have to be careful.”

I said “I wish I could put it all back together again.”

You said “maybe next time around,” and then I realized we had failed for the first time yet again. How many time around the circle will it take? “Very close this time,” you said with a sad expression hanging from your face.

“Sure can’t we give it another go?” I asked. You said no. Not this time. I wondered if her songs that sat there next to us knew what it was that I’d eventually have to do in order to make all my shortcomings up to you. The songs? They said nothing.

But doors open, and doors close. People come and go, that’s what makes us want to turn around, but we can only remember now.