Imperfect

My native tongue doesn’t allow
imperfect tense, so it’s difficult
to say how something might used
to happen but no more. Elizabeth
used to walk among these trees.
She used to walk among these trees
but doesn’t anymore. Elizabeth
is no more though she used to be.

She doesn’t anymore but she used
to walk among these trees because
she used to be happy but only
for a short while before she descended
in despair. Elizabeth we could say
used to walk among these trees
because they made her happy.
Elizabeth used to be but no more.

Copyright © 2022 by Michael Simms. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 20, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

Subscribe to the Poem-a-Day Podcast 

  

“My autism sometimes causes me to get stuck on a sentence, and I’ll repeat it again and again with minor variations. I was writing an elegy about the trees near my sister’s house, but I couldn’t capture the feeling-memory. Then, I realized what I needed was the past imperfect tense—a past action performed repeatedly—but English doesn’t have the imperfect tense. Later, I saw that my failed attempts to find the right phrase were themselves a small ode to imperfection.”
—Michael Simms