This first person I thought about sharing this poem with was my son, Jack. He wrote so many poems and songs. I've spent much of the past few weeks picking up the phone to text message or call him.
Perfection Wasted
And another regrettable thing about death
is the ceasing of your own brand of magic,
which took a whole life to develop and market -
the quips, the witticisms, the slant
adjusted to a few, those loved ones nearest
the lip of the stage, their soft faces blanched
in the footlight glow, their laughter close to tears,
their warm pooled breath in and out with your heartbeat,
their response and your performance twinned.
The jokes over the phone. The memories packed
in the rapid-access file. The whole act.
Who will do it again? That's it; no one;
imitators and descendants aren't the same.
"Perfection Wasted" is taken from John Updike's Collected Poems 1953-
1993
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