When conversations lull,
or I’m left alone with myself,
(or unexplained shivers
puppet my shoulders)
I think of writing the perfect poem.

I have so many wonderful ideas
that have all been thought
but were too messy—
and they would all be rethought
until they were polished;
until they were spotless;
until they were blacksmithed
and welded and tallied and measured and remeasured and immaculate.
Then I would have written
a flawless poem.

But then again,
if someone (even me) wrote
the perfect poem,
it would be written.
And that would be that.