9/18/24 Workshop – A Poem by Aaren Perry

SORRY STREET by Aaren Perry

One block up from Sad on Angry
Sorry Street cuts into Nightlife
at the same angle she’d look at me
when she wasn’t telling’.
These days I pass by without a glance.
I can’t see down Sorry anymore.
Been blocked for months. Power’s out,
sidewalk’s piled with the rubble of repair,
the blue cobblestones of Pity Alley
buckling down there under blinkin’ sawhorses.
That’s the corner where we used to play this game:

Her in the street like standing like Stella
staring at me starring on stage smoking.
She’d tell me to come back to her, push me away
when I did, slapped me for trying, cry
when I said I was leaving, see if she could stand it
when I stayed. Then we’d kiss and say, sorry.

We used to do shots ’til Patty’s pub closed
then hopscotch stooped stooped down Sorry
all the way to Drunk and Rage. We both wanted out
but couldn’t see it. Now I wonder if it’s her
smoking in one of those tiny TV-lit row house windows,
her face blue as an alien, or if she just finally
met someone special down the Agony Steel Plant.
I just came back for one last look.
Tomorrow I’m moving out
Of the Innerdoubt section of town, altogether.
I can’t even see down Sorry.

Reflective writing prompt
Write about the intersection of Joy and Sorry Streets