Three Poems
An air of fresh breath
I am happy, I think, then wonder
what happiness is — a crow
taking dictation or a schooner
washed up into my living room
full of rum — too complicated, I notice
the crow has written down — I guess
when the ropes around my arms
and the ropes around my legs
pull with equal tension, the horses
at the other ends of the ropes
taking a pause for the carrots
that make it worthwhile
to tear me apart, I am happy
recalling kissing my wife
all over in case that is a question
to get into heaven, Did you kiss
even the ankles, even the sphincter
of your beloved — yes, I did, but only
because the water in heaven
is clearer than the water in hell
am I kissing your hair, I told her,
every strand of it, even
the lice in your hair — those
were the days we were young
and poor and stole
the only window we owned
and hung it from nothing and called
nothing home
Course advising begins at home
At two I touched the brow
of a cadaver and wondered
if her last thoughts
had been soft
Came home at four
to a breath I loved
and told her
where my hand had been,
she drew it down
to where she smelled
like rain on my fingers
Next day, I dropped anatomy
and came home with a novel
about a woman who went
unnoticed, even by herself,
and wild flowers
to remind our eyes
not to give up
The workplace
He always has to be doing something new
with his torture and it makes the rest of us
look bad, so we never sit with him at lunch
looking out at the bay, the fishing boats
mostly gone, an old man or two
fixing a net, afraid to look up at us
on the hill, the whole town quiet,
no one speaking, not a word,
writing everything down instead, first
on paper and then, after he suggested
we gather their notes and love letters,
only on skin, and after he suggested
we gather their skin, only on air,
which he says we should take from them
now, look at him bent over his notebook,
sketching away, devising a plan
to annihilate their breath
while the rest of us eat our beans
and lie about the beauty of the flowers
and birds we raise, of the horses
we would take as our brides if we could
Bob Hicok’s seventh collection is Elegy Owed (Copper Canyon, 2013). This Clumsy Living (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007), was awarded the 2008 Bobbitt Prize from the Library of Congress and published in a German translation by Luxbooks in 2013. A recipient of six Pushcart Prizes, a Guggenheim and two NEA Fellowships, his poetry has been selected for inclusion in eight volumes of Best American Poetry.