Regret

I used to watch the ants.

Bodies scurrying out

of sidewalk cracks, angular

jolts of         movement

in only seemingly disarray

like how I imagined time—

here

then

where?            this jumbled

sense of reality.

For weeks, you had to

draw arrows,               reminding me

time

goes

only forward.

(You              can             never          go ______!)

You’d crossly cross

out my circles and dots…

my growing depictions

of how I wanted

time      —life—

to operate.

But it’s a question of selfishness:

            Am I going back to save

only

myself? Once

I left

  my apartment

because the neighbor

began using

A/C in the dull

February sun. As I shivered,

I wondered what I was     missing.

How many years did I sleep

too early for stars?

Somewhere a butterfly

swoops down, a monarch’s

starkness,

unmistakable.

(How can I hate both change and permanence?)

The head of my bed is where

the sun rises.

If I move

to the living room, I hear

the waves lap miles away,

the hypnotizing jolt,

time a matter of the tides.

Vanessa Ogle is a poet and writer. Her work has most recently appeared in the New York Times and The Nation. She received her MFA from Hunter College in 2020. You can find more of her work here: https://www.vanessaoglewrites.com/