As If

This from Summer Storm by Dana Gioa.  Those last four lines are strong:

“Why does that evening’s memory

Return with this night’s storm —

A party twenty years ago,

Its disappointment warm?

There are so many might have beens,

What ifs that won’t stay buried,

Other cities, other jobs,

Strangers we might have married.

And memory insists on pining

For places it never went,

As if life would be happier

Just by being different.”