Perfect Blame Poem by Lonnie Hicks

If I write the perfect poem
then my creation
mocks me
because it is perfect
and I know I am not.
The imperfect poem
is better for me
yet perfection
haunts
and I continue to strive
for its outlines
even as I concede
imperfection's continence
is more like me.
It may be I have to concede
that I and all of us are perfect
as we are inside
but once perfection moves outside my skin
the world taints it
with its imperfections
and I have to take the blame.