Show me how to do it like you

Not a hair

out of place. Not a ruffle

of dress, or of distress.

No clumsy errors

or misdemeanours

Perfect. And

Immaculate.

A story-book heroine

A graceful River flowing easy

is how your life

appears to me.

And I stare ruefully

at my own cobwebs

that need dusting,

removing, rethinking

at the fault-lines

that lead to earthquakes

at the sticky slime

at the acids that corrode

layers of my limestone mind.

Show me how to do it,

Show me how to do it like you.

(The last 2 lines, taken from Stevie Wonder's song, also form the epigraph to Alice Walker's The Color Purple.)