Regret

‘Regret is mostly caused by not having
done anything.’
― Charles Bukowski

 
Here is that cup of tea
I never brought you before time ran out.

And, fresh from the market stall,
the favourite flowers I always forgot to buy as I walked home in the rain.

And what else? Here is the winter coat
you should have owned but did without. Saving the pennies !

But where is that love poem I never wrote for you?
Don’t ask. I might have composed it, had love not altered, faltered.

Oh, and just one more thing: here is that strange picture
you used to desire. I’ve hung it on the wall. See?

Thus it is, I enter, with a bowlful of regrets.
Carefully, I place it, on the coffin of your memory

and raise a glass of your favourite tipple.
I down it in one. And move on.