A scum of butter floats on the cold water
you've run in the teacup.
But if you drop
one drop of our miracle soap
into the center,
a pupil will open, and widen, like a bull's-eye
eating a target.
You can forget
your whole life's lonely secret.
Try it, you'll see.
(Tar River Poetry, Vol. 61, #2, 2022)