Stanzas Ending with the Same Two Words

At first I felt shame because I had entered
through the door marked Your Death.

Not a valuable word written
unsteeped in your death.

You are the ruin whose arm encircles the young woman
at the posthumous bar, before your death.

The grass is still hungry
above you, fed by your death.

Kill whatever killed your father, your life
turning to me again said before your death.

Hard to grow old still hungry.
You were still hungry at your death.

Copyright Credit: Frank Bidart, "Stanzas Ending with the Same Two Words" from Star Dust. Copyright © 2005 by Frank Bidart. Used by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, LLC, http://us.macmillan.com/fsg. All rights reserved.

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Source: Star Dust (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005)