Story Telling
A poem by Ed Ahern

Story Telling

Oral family history
is of its shifting nature
blotched by secrets:
misrememberings,
overstatements,
embellishments,
and flat out lies.

Those who still know
will rarely admit that
their cousin was a suicide;
they really didn’t graduate;
their retreat was a rehab;
their lifestyle is a sham;
their mourning is proforma.

The posed family photos
portray emotional proximity
belying everyday indifference.
But perhaps all the lying
unconscious or deliberate
holds a larger truth-
our narrative reality
demands a good story.

About the Author:

Ed Ahern resumed writing after forty odd years in foreign intelligence and international sales. He’s had over 450 stories and poems published so far, and nine books. Ed works the other side of writing at Bewildering Stories where he manages a posse of eight review editors, and as lead editor at Scribes Microfiction.

https://www.facebook.com/EdAhern73/?ref=bookmarks

https://www.instagram.com/edwardahern1860

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