Regret:

Sometimes my children are distant,

their voices sound like the departing honks

of geese flying to lands unknown,

and in their eyes I see clouds and skies

moving across oceans I have never travelled.

My hand then shimmers and I can see

my skin flaking, falling like snow

or manna to unknown uplifted faces

and my feet fall through their shoes,

enter the earth, and deeper still,

until I reside in the caverns of memory.

And I hear a thousand unlatched gates

closing, harsh as teeth gnashing, I smell

the sadness in a million flowers fading—

their petals falling like all the words

I meant to say and never got around to.