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POET'S CHOICE

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often rejoicing with one

and consoling the other,

we who had seen her truly alive

and then merely alive,

what could we do but revise

our phone book, our hearts,

offer a little toast to what goes on.

This story of a wife's betrayal and her husband's fidelity unto death stings me with the awareness that small, unnoticed nobility endures in our midst.

W.D. Snodgrass's "April Inventory" is from "Heart's Needle." Copyright 1959 by William Snodgrass. Reprinted with permission of Knopf. Stephen Dunn's "What Goes On" is from "Different Hours: Poems." Copyright 2000 by Stephen Dunn. Reprinted with permission of Norton.

Mary Karr has published four books of poems, most recently " Sinners Welcome. "

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