Class Reunion, for dVerse Poets, May 27, 2025

28 Replies

 

Class Reunion

I wish I’d set the truth aside.
I wish instead that I had lied
when you asked the reason why
I didn’t choose the other guy.
I wish I’d said you’d won my heart
quickly, from the very start.

But, alas, I told the truth.
Blame it on my careless youth.
It was, perhaps, naïveté
that made me answer you that way.
I said you were my second choice,
then heard that quaver in your voice.

For all those years forever after,
I’ve recalled your bitter laughter
as you said you guessed you’d wait
for the type of girl who’d rate
you first when making her selection,
and thus began your swift defection.

After all these years, I’ll tell
that I remember very well
regrets I suffered at your leaving—
all those nights of futile grieving.
Watching as you met your wife,
had your kids and built your life.

Every few years at class reunions
as we all share our fond communions,
I’ll catch your eye and feel the spark
that goes unnoticed in the dark.
And every day, until I die,
I’ll wish I’d told that little lie.

for dVerse Poets the prompt is to write a poem about any pivotal moment in your life that left you with gnawing regrets or you could cover the entire gamut from anger to forgiveness and reconciliation. In short, you will be writing about a krisis in your personal life. Image by Viktor Talashuk on Unsplash.

28 thoughts on “Class Reunion, for dVerse Poets, May 27, 2025”

  6. Frewin55's avatarFrewin55

    Just as I was beginning what I thought was my first real relationship at university, she was seduced by one of our lecturers, hard to compete with that and I was bitter. We did meet up after university and her affair was over, but I couldn’t get past the bitterness and I blew what ever might have been and so, Judy, although different, I know this lifelong wondering and regret that you describe so well…

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      1. Lona Gynt's avatarLona Gynt

        I am not fishing here, it is your story to tell. But is the true story sadder because it is sadder, or becasue it is true. Both the poem and your commentary carry profound weight.

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  9. paeansunplugged's avatarpaeansunplugged

    Such is life and such is truth! I remember when we had a class reunion around 20 years after leaving school, a classmate confessed to one of my friends that he had a crush on her. Both of them by then were happily married but that really made her day. She was a quiet one and an average student and always felt boys were not interested in her.

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  10. Lona Gynt's avatarLona Gynt

    such wonderful use of form and heart. “I wish I had told that little lie.” Well I wish I had thought up that line- so powerful and tender. This poem is now a fav. Evokes Phillip Larkin for me in the delicate use of detail to pack a punch.

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  12. ben Alexander's avatarben Alexander

    Judy, the line “I wish I’d said you’d won my heart quickly, from the very start” feels especially raw to me — it’s like the ache of regret is folded right into the wish, making that moment linger with an honest ache.

    Your poem makes me feel the weight of those silent what-ifs in a way that’s quietly powerful.

    ~David

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  13. shaun tenzenmen's avatartenzenmen

    My aunt ended up marrying a schoolboy admirer when they met again in their late 70s. He had watched on as she left for a miserable life abroad with another in her early 20s. After her husband passed away, she made a quick visit home where they met by accident and started their lives again, together.

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