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.

Nancy Keating, American Life in Poetry December 13, 2021