barring perfection

here is my torn curtain,
my mumbling, my dirty knees,
my faulty measurement, my mistake,
my burnt lightbulb, my scraping chair.
here is my dying plant, my sour milk,
my lost button, my failing battery.
here is my fatigue, my weakness, my messy hair,
my bad timing, my patchy skin, my bitten fingernails.
here is proof of all that is missing
or broken or smudged of its tenderness, its sweet beginning.
here is all that is left after each pummeling rainstorm,
every wallop of wind that topples the tree of bursting color.

but barring perfection, there is a body still
ringing with visible bloom, bobbing on the water
as best it can, and that, too, must be loved.