BY NANCY KEATING
Give me another word for regret,
something more like forget
only better, more effective,
since in fact we really don’t forget
the bad things we did
or caused. I read in a letter
to The Sun Magazine where a man
will always remember the egret
lying, a silent heap of cirrus clouds,
at his 12-year-old feet. It was his first
and last time shooting a gun.
His confession stabbed me
into a memory of unremembered shame
and the ache in my stomach telling me
I had joined humanity.
Poem copyright ©2021 by Nancy Keating, “The Snowy Egret” from White Chick (Elixir Press, 2021.)
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