Not a Rose

A Poem by Kherry McKay

Idealize this!

Not a Rose

“I don’t think idealizing me. . . is helpful. . . . [There is]

a danger of holding someone up to impossible standards

to which no human can possibly conform!”

If perfection were mountains, she wouldn’t be the peaks.
Instead, she’d be down in the wet valley

flowing lazily on a river
on an inner tube, smiling;

driving people crazy with her nonchalance.

If perfection were good cooking, she wouldn’t be a fine
restaurant. She’d be a McDonald’s Happy Meal,
enjoyed by a kid
who’d never before been to McDonald’s
but who’d dreamed of going

every day of his life.

If perfection were a fast car, she wouldn’t be a Ferrari.
She’d judder along, a ’72 Beetle,
its muffler gone,
debouching smoke in six directions.
Everywhere, she’d break down, and motorists
like me
would pull over to offer assistance.

She’d lean back to one side,
happily surprised to get the support,
as we greased
ill-equipped hands with her VW sootiness,

our heads sweating,
grateful, nonetheless to be of help.

If perfection were a flower, she wouldn’t be a red rose
blooming in spring;
she’d be one of the little white flowers
growing impossibly in my basement
deep down in the darkest crevices
that keep the mice
alive in winter
when all other food has run out.

If perfection were a poet, she wouldn’t be Shakespeare,
or Auden, or Eliot;
She’d be the hairy guy
dominating in my writing group
who quietly
feeds all the stray cats of the neighborhood
and calls his mother each week to tell her
he loves her.

And if perfection were a poem, she wouldn’t be this poem.
She’d be the regular crap I write
at three in the morning,
frustrated,
breaking pencils, sighing. . .
shouting and saying
to literature and no one in particular:
“F**k this!
There will never be an end!”

Take a look at more of Kherry McKay's writing in the Cafe!