Being Beautiful

It is effortless to love the beautiful,
to choose the beautiful.
But it is not effortless for me.
For what I choose
would be the three legged dog
because its heart is huge.
The cleft palette
because of eyes that bewitch me
with their soul.
A speckled apple for being held
by my beloved.
Salt rather than the diamond,
for its taste.
A hard scrabble road
for the poet living there.
The plain woman for bearing divinity.
A broken bell above a ruined church,
for faith,
and everything beautiful that dies,
because it would not choose,
and be unworthy of itself.