Middling

It is not at all
in the shape
you planned for.
It is a plastic rendering
of what was meant for bronze.
Plaster over paint chinking off.
Scar story of measured failings,
but not a whole failing. Not that.
You expected whole failing and this
is not that.  More an
improvised recall of what was
intended. 

Seeking that mold
that was not used you will find
it was cracked through.  This is
better, a sentence away from
incomplete fashioning
of original thought.  It is made
up, dashed off, strokes of genius
crossed with kindergarten theory,
intersections of lost paths
in childhood weedlots retraced
by graying men looking at losses.

Remarkable stars still above it.
Unsurprised streams.
Ponds not as deep when measured
against longer shins
but just as cold, muck as sucking
as ever. Easier to take —

it is not what was planned
or expected.  It is what’s
passed into present.
It is. 

Allow for it.
Pocket your silly sorrow, it lives
and is yours
and you own the germ of
a next pass at the shape
it should be.