The Last Time
They say there’s a first time
for everything
but it’s really the last times
that matter
your last kiss
your last sunset
your last time making love
all of them gathering
conspiring
unnoticed
unremarkable
until their true meaning
emerges
and then
at the final moment
when some longed-for truth
comes rushing in
the last breath
(the last of the last)
passes out into the world
like a friend who’s stayed
too long
Steven Meloan has written for Wired, the Huffington Post, Los Angeles, the San Francisco Chronicle, and SF Weekly. His fiction has appeared in SOMA Magazine, the Sonoma Valley Sun, Lummox Press, and Roadside Press, as well as at Litquake, Quiet Lightning, Library Girl, The Rapp Saloon Poetry Reading series, and other literary events. His short fiction collection, St. James Infirmary, was released in 2023 on Roadside Press, and a collaboration collection with his brother Michael, The Kind the Pharaohs Try, was released in 2024 on Naked Light Press. He is a recovered software developer, and a former busker in London, Paris, and Berlin.
