After Wendy Cope
It was noon when I gave myself the task-
learn to make paper cranes.
And with a heavy hand, I began.
I folded and crinkled and wrinkled
the thin piece of paper into the implication of a bird.
It was ugly and lumpy,
The air of delicacy I tried to obtained was squashed
in between messy, imperfect folds.
I still showed you my work, and you laughed
which got me laughing.
And there we sat together in a moment of peace
over the ugliest excuse for a paper crane we’d ever seen.
This was my life now,
trying and failing and laughing at ordinary things.
Writing, drawing, sitting in the rain,
dancing, feeling the breeze on my shoulders,
everything human, everything alive and easy and
lightly laced with our laughs.
I can keep living like this.
I’m satisfied with the imperfect.