Someone Else’s Story

Most of the chatter in our marriage
isn’t out of boredom, but when
my husband tells a story in which
he’s played no part: let’s say someone
else’s story overheard at the Rotary
or whispered at the barber shop,

it’s not that he doesn’t have
tales to tell, or that his stories repel
or fall short as a moral or a thought
he isn’t intrepid enough on his own. No,

he loves the stories he finds
abandoned on life’s dusty shelves,
old books closed and catalogued
in vaulted archives, heard once
maybe twice, then filed away.

He loves hushed undertones
of lives he’s never lived. Most
of the time, he’s effacing enough
not to over-embellish a nuance
of the world he’s stepped into

like the follower of some scripture
brought to life again, resurrected
in the rescued details and laid
into the world anew, usually after
a drink or two, when he feels
he might be smaller than he seems.