This Will Not Be the End of It

Luckily, the night ends
with a calm over Valparaíso.
Neruda’s chair a cloud,
they tell themselves.
A boat muffles
the sound of sleep.
An old woman sighs.
From her fullness or
freedom. From tears
beading the sky.
He might have fled
to Mexico before dying.
Children play &
bend their bodies
in these streets.
Until they scatter
like stars upon the mountains,
their chatter & rattle,
like so many questions
from the withered
flowers around the corner.

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Cynthia Bargar is Associate Poetry editor at Pangyrus. Her poems have appeared in many journals, most recently Rogue Agent, Book of Matches, Driftwood Press, and in the book, Our Provincetown: Intimate Portraits by Barbara E. Cohen (Provincetown Arts Press, 2021). Her first poetry collection, Sleeping in the Dead Girl’s Room, came out from Lily Poetry Review Books in January, 2022. Cynthia lives with her partner, cartoonist Nick Thorkelson, in Provincetown, Massachusetts.