My Dearest Regret,

You’ve found me and lost me again. How come
there are interruptions in your day?
How come the sweet grass and the hayseed? Pardon?
Pardon my leanings, I’ve wished you gone. Wished
you’d depart into woods, though you are the woods.
I’ve called you “thicket” sometimes. I’ve called you
bramble and black lorry.
                                        You’re my dearest one-ton truck.
Were you with me at the chimney or the season
which you listened with one ear? Sometimes
I think you don’t hear me and yet you stand there
like a signpost, like a wrecked chute for grain. My dear bramble,
dear black lorry, drive on. Drive past the field where the ruined chimney
scratches the sky.
                          Dearest thicket, you’ve found me out
although I’ve been hiding in the silos
near the field. You dominate the field.

“My Dearest Regret” was first published in Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art No. 37, Summer 2003.