Sometimes, you can judge a book by its cover. 
The cover of Fixer, Edgar Kunz’ second collection of published poems, features a worn lighter. It is obvious the lighter has been used frequently over a long period of time. The metal is tarnished; the image of a ship sailing on waves is worn. The old Zippo implies the story of a real life lived.
That’s the book.
The collection is called Fixer, and everything hinges on the poem “Fixer,” a recounting of three brothers managing the immediate aftermath of their deceased father’s body and estate. Their relationship was complicated, although seemingly affectionate. The father declined at a point (un)certain, spent his time in the basement, divorced the brothers’ mother, lived alone, drank, showed up infrequently with good intentions and awkward hugs. No one knew he was dead for some time. The sons clear out his apartment, against their better judgment.
“Left it open / for the smell. Tried not to look / at the stain. Tried to be respectful.”
They take care of his personal effects:
“Everything / we touch, you touched. Your socks…Zippo with a carving of a whale, / proud ship in the distance.”
They look through his things one last time:
“Totes and boxes marked / DONATION are bound with rope / and staked neatly on giant rolling carts. / There he is, Noah says, pointing to the bin.”
Who is the fixer? It’s the father, the reader gleans as a friend of the father’s remembers:
“Chris, she says, oh you mean Handy, / great guy life of the party…plus he could fix / anything, he was amazing.” He could fix anything. He could juggle. The party was always at their parents’ place, once.
Structurally, the book itself does something interesting. Pre-“Fixer” poems are mostly about gig economy jobs, hustling, and other late stage capitalism concerns. Post-“Fixer” poems focus on the narrator’s own apartment, a relationship, human touch, starting again.
climbing the steps you pinch
my elbow and ask if I’m
okay and I hear myself
say yes which is not a lie though
I’m not listening I’m letting
myself feel how astonishing how
astonishing what our love can make
of a place like that
