The Snowy Egret

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.