To Perfect Imperfection

I have spent half a lifetime wondering if my poetry has merit.

And it is only now

Hitting 35 on the highway to nowhere,

that I've discovered that this worry 

is the essence of the art.

You bring your raw untainted emotions 

in from the storm of the real world.

And you present them,

Like patient rounds through medical hallways.

Being judged on severity

Presentation

The ability to evoke empathy from onlookers. 

But my poems are only as damaged as their author,

and they require no diagnosis or postmortem.

To perfect imperfection, 

is to kill the undying,

and then from where will the next verse flow.