For Uncle Ed

The sacred wildness is unlikely to survive

an alcoholic father,

the Korean War,

40 years in an assembly line,

and an inability to pay for a wife’s
cancer medication.

But sometimes it does anyway,

as when an unknown vigilante
jumps a fence in the dark

and spray paints a fleet
of black and white police cars

blue
as a field of aster.

Scott T. Starbuck’s poems have been published in several print and online journals. His new chapbook, The Warrior Poems, was a finalist at the 2009 Pudding House Poetry Chapbook Competition, and will soon be published by Pudding House.