Imperfection Of Perfection Poem by Samah Khan

I daren't gaze into my mother's eyes too long,
The image of perfection startles me-for when I peer cautiously in the mirror
To scrutinize the hideously and irrevocably deformed being-I do not see it;
I do not see any way towards the future, with only the love of my mother,
For she will wither away and yet cling on to that love,
Her hands then branches resting against the aging bark of time-
But her love still plain and as immaculate as they day when she first held
The bloody mass of tears and pink flesh in her arms-
From then began a love as old as time-unsusceptible to duplicity
Or infidelity that reigns in the blood of lovers and friends and subjects;
No king has ruled with equivocal love, nor has any serf shown such loyalty
To his overlord-these tales are of self-beneficial allegiances
Of steadfastness borne for the need of filling the self-
But a mother's love! Ah! The imperfection of her perfection is daunting.
She can neither find fault with me nor claim to any misdeed that I have deigned to commit
For she is the one who kicking, bore me when I was yet inside of her,
And that bearing was a part of her-a heart, a mind, a soul enjoined inseparably
To hers-and when finally they did fight their way out, she held them close
To her bosom, ensuring that the eye was never denied that which the body was;
And her warmth is but a part of the perfection with which she gazes at me-
My discomfiture is not seen by her and she does not understand the pain of ugliness-
Of shattering mirrors and bleeding eyes-nay, she sees only her child-
Perfect, so perfect that not even perfection could stand against her-
And thereby perfection became convoluted into an ugliness of its own
One it is alien to-imperfection.