Abstract
Imagine here a title that calms you down Bob Hicok (bio) The music stopped. Whatever door we were in front ofopened, we went in, sat down to dinner,had sex and babies and put the garden hosesaway in October, before the freeze. It was a tunereminiscent of Ravel. I miss it, my wife misses it,we miss it together in the eveningson opposite sides of the dam, one of usdrawing a picture and the otherwriting down the word for that picture. We neverget it right: my pony is her forge,her tree looking at itself in a mirroris my diamond induced refraction. And there's neverany water behind the dam, as if it had been builtto attract a river too wise for the trap,nor does the Town Council ever approvethe proposal to fill in the gapsin our knowledge of human behavior, so the gapsremain. The closest we got was 7-6. One sentimentthe other way and we'd understand perfectlywhy we do what we do. As it is,we do what we do with this hauntingsense of a tune that didn't want us, that shook us loosefrom its hair. She knits scarvesto keep our abstract notions of freedomwarm. I stack rocks on the left side [End Page 35] of falling apart, admire the shapeone time only and move the shapeto the right side of falling apart. I haveincredible forearms: she, a harvest of scarves.Sometimes we burrow into the harvestand make love and find a hole to look out fromas we struggle to breathe the itchy air.It's a good life, though I make this claimquietly, in a voice that doesn't actuallyspeak, that keeps to itself, much as the dreamsof fireworks have yet to find a sleeper capableof withstanding the finale, though many believethey are that bright vessel, that ahhhwaiting to cross a field as the last birdsof sulfur fall. [End Page 36] Bob Hicok Bob Hicok's sixth collection, Words for Empty and Words for Full, will be published by Pitt in 2010. His last book, This Clumsy Living (Pitt Poetry Series, 2007), received the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry from the Library of Congress. Copyright © 2010 Michigan State University Board of Trustees
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