Forgetting Everything but Regrets
Removing the lid to the grinder,
I discover that the peanut butter,
ready to be scooped into a mason jar,
seems to resemble my memories,
explaining why I cannot remember
the names of childhood friends,
events my wife describes from twenty
years back, or the plots of novels read
just three years ago. Those peanuts
remaining intact serve as regrets—
smoking all through my twenties
and thirties, weekend nights spent
stoned in front of the television,
losing touch with friends who died,
and not at their bedside saying goodbye
when my mother and father passed away.
I scoop these regrets into a mason jar
stored in the back of the refrigerator
next to a jar of jam, touching them
when I rearrange the shelf
or spread them over a cracker at lunch,
reminding myself over and over again.
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James P. Cooper has had poems appear in Apple Valley Review, Dragon Poet Review, Evening Street Review, Flint Hills Review, Red Rock Review, Slant, and other journals. His chapbook, Listening for Low Tide, was published in 2022. He teaches college writing online, works as a poetry editor for Choeofpleirn Press, lives in Leavenworth, Kansas with his wife, and blogs occasionally at https://redmooncafe.blogspot.com/.
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Stone Poetry Quarterly 