No, I Don’t Regret Loving You
by Jessie Anne Harrison
Not because it was a steppingstone to better water. Nor because I miss the current you pulled me under. (I craved the roar and the pressure, then.) It’s not the tug of nostalgia’s tide. That old love was not a bucket I added to the pool my lily pad now rests in. It wasn’t a steppingstone. I can no longer tell Pacific water from Atlantic. Leave that to the scientists. I love you then. I love him now. I’ll take him to that river we washed up in and show him the rock I cut my foot on. I’ll feel no shame. I’ll stand comfortably in that water again. What evaporates from the surface will water the bluebonnets next year. I stamped my boots in those puddles. I’ll pick the violets in the spring. It was always changing. It will always be the same.