Newsletter sign up

Be the first to know when new American Life in Poetry columns are live.

Column 004

Another Feeling

Intro by Ted Kooser
04.27.2005

None of us can fix the past. Mis­takes we’ve made can bur­den us for many years, deliv­er­ing their pain to the present as if they had hap­pened just yes­ter­day. In the fol­low­ing poem we join with Ruth Stone in revis­it­ing a hur­ried deci­sion, and we empathize with the intense regret of being unable to take that deci­sion back, or any oth­er deci­sion, for that matter.

Another Feeling

Once you saw a drove of young pigs
crossing the highway. One of them
pulling his body by the front feet,
the hind legs dragging flat.
Without thinking,
you called the Humane Society.
They came with a net and went for him.
They were matter of fact, uniformed;
there were two of them,
their truck ominous, with a cage.
He was hiding in the weeds. It was then
you saw his eyes. He understood.
He was trembling.
After they took him, you began to suffer regret.
Years later, you remember his misfit body
scrambling to reach the others.
Even at this moment, your heart
is going too fast; your hands sweat.

Share this column

Disclaimer

We do not accept unsolicited submissions

We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Reprinted from In the Dark, Copper Canyon Press, 2004, by permission of the author and publisher. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.