Friday, February 18, 2022

Poem - Regret - Barbara Crooker



Regret 

nothing. Not those years 
when you were a single mother, 
bologna casserole, and not enough 
money for heat. Or the years before, 
the ones spent trying to please a man 
who couldn’t be happy, no matter how 
hard you tried to replicate his mother’s recipes— 
the marinara wasn’t sweet enough, the lasagna 
didn’t have enough layers. 
Don’t regret the years that went up 
in smoke, the glamour of the lit match, 
the first drag, the curls that rose 
to decorate the ceiling. Or the years 
as a waitress, the customers who stiffed 
you on tips, which were quarters 
and nickels back then, every thin dime 
counting. Instead, remember your friends, 
those hours on the telephone, the artery 
of the long black cord, a river of voice. 
Don’t tell me that broken places 
make you stronger, and I won’t mention 
silver linings. Sometimes, there are scars. 
 Sometimes, it rains. Stop looking for the friends 
who aren’t here, the ones whose faces you sometimes 
glimpse in a crowd. The past is the grass growing under 
our feet; the dirt beneath it, what feeds it. Remember 
that nothing is ever lost.

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