Poem of the Week

My Regrets

Austin Rodenbiker

In the center of my youth I stayed in.

In the center of my youth I repeated the words of desire.

In the center of my youth I went to a room full of men and became

a tree, became a pane of glass, became steam.

I coveted the jewels of others. I yellowed.

In the center of my youth I broke my teeth on peach pits.

In the center of my youth I dropped my youth.

In the center of my youth I turned around and around like a dog

before sleep.

In the center of my youth I could not enter the city.

I could not swim the lake. I stood on a wrecked beach.

In the center of the beach there was a tree.

In the center of the tree there was a man.

In the center of the man was another man, hungrier.

In the center of the hunger was nothing, you

couldn’t even put a small stone there.

The Yale Review · "My Regrets" by Austin Rodenbiker

What surprised you about the composition of this poem?

I’m not sure what I expected when I began writing this poem. Repetition seems to me to be a kind of portal, a crumbling implosion of language that can lead to something true. I often have an inkling where or what that truth is—like an underground stream, there is a sense in which direction the water flows. But this particular anaphora, “in the center of my youth,” ultimately felt more like a wormhole. It was as though I had traveled in those words an impossible distance.

Austin Rodenbiker Austin Rodenbiker is a poet living on the coast of Maine. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Conduit, Poetry, Gulf Coast, Tin House, and Foglifter, among others.

Featured