Redemption By Greg Clary

Sundays nights at The Lantern

meant hunch dancing around

the shuffleboard table to

a country band playing

Wasted Days and Wasted Nights.

That’s where she found me.

 At the bar nursing 

a tall Falls City,

shrouded in blue smoke, 

 measuring one more

Ghost of Regret.

. 

She was heading 

 home to Pittsburgh

to patch things up with her fiancé.

A great guy.

She never lied or misled me. 

Her future always meant him.

But we did have us some fun

before saying what we thought

needed to be said.

As the band shifted into

Merle’s Swinging Doors,

 a familiar arm 

 hugged my neck from behind.

“You have got to get out of here”, she whispered

“Let me finish my beer first’, I eagerly replied

She swatted my head,

“No, you knucklehead, not that! 

Look at me.

You have to leave this town.

This life you’re living.

There is more for you.

But it’s not here.”

She spoke truth.

I actually listened for once.

Chances were taken.

Cautiously.

Changes were made.

Slowly.

I learned that

things work out in the end. 

And if they don’t,

 it’s not the end. 

Greg Clary is a retired college professor who was born and raised in Turkey Creek, West Virginia. He now resides in the northwestern Pennsylvania Wilds where he enjoys cathead biscuits, an occasional 2 fingers of Jameson over one cube of ice, and people who can ease into a conversation without taking it over.

His photographs and poetry have appeared in many publications including The Sun Magazine, Looking at Appalachia, Rattle, The Watershed Journal, Appalachian Lit, Rye Whiskey Review, Waccamaw Journal, and the Hole in the Head Review.