Regrets
The things I did, decisions I made, actions
I took: moving restlessly from one house,
town, city, job, lover, on to another
in search of more and better but
every move turned out to be lateral—
–or no—collateral, leading me to this
endgame.
Worse than these, the things I did
not do, decisions I made to take no
action: letting things happen with a
shrug, thinking I was flowing
not knowing every shrug was assent—
–active action—leading to this empty
endgame.
Of these, the action not taken
out of fear: the denial, the pretense,
the looking away. The time the
Ku Klux Klan burned a cross
in a nearby town and I hung up
the phone and continued reporting
on the progress of the sewer project.
2 Comments
May 30, 2007 at 2:53 am
Wow, M. Thank you for sharing this.
June 5, 2007 at 1:10 pm
“Every shrug was assent”: so accurate, so true.
A magnificently honest poem, Marcy. You have both insight and courage. The shrugged assents of the past are writing and poetry now, and we are the beneficiaries. Thank you.
Thank you. It makes me blush with pleasure when people like my poems.–MS