POEM FOR KATHY STARBUCK

you find yourself

perched on a flimsy seat
over a dunk tank of roiling recent
cold deaths –-

your husband’s the last dead-
center shot in the bull’s-eye,
his departure your welcome

into the world of suffocating
grief –- and you
do not bother

treading water

choosing
sinking

over
swimming;

no air anywhere
for the living.

and in holding your last breaths
inside your now
hollow heartless chest

you discover there
still is poetry
left.

it won’t keep you
alive
but it’s good company
until you
lose yourself and
die, too.

MIRROR MIRROR

you always want something great out
of the gate, you put
your best foot
right in your mouth.

you can't anticipate
all the mistakes you'll make and
how those stains might
never fade.

your fumbling is a message
that gets mumbled
with precision; you are will-
ful in your indecision.

you wear wonder like a neck
beard tucked in
just below your perfect chin.

you are the perfect
project, a wreck-
less lover, a kind of human
fixer-upper.