[net.poems] Perfect Woman

lute (04/29/83)

			PERFECT WOMAN


	I began many years ago, as so many young men do, in searching for
	the perfect woman.  I believed that if I looked long enough, and
	hard enough, I would find her and then I would be secure for life.
	Well, the years and romances came and went, and I eventually ended
	up settling for someone a lot less than my idea of perfection.
	But one day, after many years together, I lay there on our bed
	recovering from a slight illness.  My wife was sitting on a chair
	next to the bed, humming softly and watching the late afternoon
	sun filtering through the trees.  The only sounds to be heard
	elsewhere were the clock ticking, the kettle downstairs starting to
	boil, and an occasional schoolchild passing beneath our window.  And as
	I looked up into my wife's now wrinkled face, but still warm and
	twinkling eyes, I realized something about perfection...It comes
	only with time.



					James L. Collymore
					(copyright 1978)