Imperfection
April 8 2008


A wrong turn
heading east on the westbound expressway.
Or bad sex,
especially next to her in bed
in dawn’s relentless light.
Or inappropriate friends
your mother warned you against,
cutting class
smoking dope in the high school parking lot.
However the mess begins
it inevitably ends
— perhaps with benign forgetfulness;
or, more likely, regret.

But imperfection is what makes us tick,
the broken code, the sticky bits
of DNA
— the tiny mistakes
that evolution plays with.
And reptilian brains
hiding-out
in the thick bony base of the human skull,
brain-washing us
into believing we are rational beings
acting out of pure free will.

Me, I’m content with imperfection.
Unlike the Hitler Youth
who thought they might be perfect
— in goose-stepping German
square-jawed Aryans
praising themselves.
Or the Church
which imagines we are perfectible
if we’d only open-up to His love,
renouncing all earthly pleasures
assuming our burden of guilt.
Or self-help books
which insist we’re already good enough,
if we’d only believe in ourselves.

So I’m either the sharp edge of natural selection
or its dregs
— a failed experiment
a biological dead-end.
Who, nevertheless, has learned
to make nifty U-turns,
and promise to call her tomorrow,
and be loyal to his friends.
Even if mothers, as always, know best.