If I Were a Poet

It’s Friday night at the Watering Hole,
the best bar in all of heaven.

Souls are reminiscing over beers,
about careers and hobbies,
weddings and funerals,
vacations in summer with the kids.

Joe with red hair says “I never learned to ski.”
Jim with no hair says “I never climbed Everest.”
And then, at the end of the bar, Jack
who doesn’t even have a head, quietly says
“I never forgave my dad.”

It’s getting late,
but they order another round,
trying to drown the questions—
always the same questions:
If you could live again,
what would you change?
What was the point of it all?
And how could you have
avoided this eternity of regrets?