The Way The Story Goes Poem by Dónall Dempsey

Always enchantments
falling from your lips.

Orpheus...Eurydice
made real

made from the nearness
of your breath...a kiss.

I cry unashamedly each time
Orpheus looks back &
Eurydice is lost

...to his hysterical heart.

I ask for this story endlessly.
Each time promising I
won’t cry &...I cry.

Scream: “No! ”
as if Orpheus can hear me.

Each time believing that
Death can be cheated

& wailing: “Why? ”

Years later the bus crash
(the story, Death invented)

turns me into Orpheus
you into Eurydice.

I search endlessly for your kiss
the nearness of your breath
...that smile.

The story...
...falling from your lips.

Morning shatters
the dream

the ghost of your voice smiling:

“Shhhh...shush...that’s just
...the way the story goes.