I like looking at something strange, like a nail

driven crookedly and bent

into a hard plank in the barn with the head

sort of lolling over and stiff. It's strange

to be sticking plainly out of the order

of the barn and to have a singular

countenance. But the barn itself

on the whole is not so rational—

it has a significant uphill lean,

which I admire or regard as I would

a statue in a church with a sad

and still compassionate face looking out.

Whoever drove the nail got it

only to go so far before

it bent, and then he hit it again

and further bent it. Whoever it was

who drove the nail and stopped had tried

to be precise and notably failed

and left the failure there to see.

After considering this I still

oppose perfection or reaching it

and still believe in trying to—

that is what I meant by strange,

that is why I'm leaving the nail where it is

as if I'd driven it myself.