Two Poems
Every fact an artifact
Lost and separated was worse than lost
and together — we would die alone
with our thirsts instead of together
with the harmony of our thirsts — no one
to gather our bones into a single pile
of all the shadows a larger pile of bones
would cast — but then my noise
found her noise and we managed to die
together — I don’t know why
you’re reading this poem — it doesn’t
exist — I haven’t been here for years,
drinking a beer, thinking of burying
a mirror for someone to dig up
in a thousand years — my face
looking up at them from the hole –
like the mirror I found when I was a kid –
the woman naked — telling me it was OK
to stare — it’s normal to want to see eternity
–
Introspection works better when you turn it around
My doppelgänger comes over
to borrow the car, robs a bank,
gets arrested, I go to bail him out
and am told that a man can’t bail himself
out of jail, it’s just not done,
soon mirrors will be flying our planes,
a guard says to me through bars,
and you wouldn’t want that, would you,
though I would, I really would
want to see my reflection flying a plane
all the way to Brazil, see it guiding
a boat up the Amazon, see my reflection
disappearing forever into a wilder,
more natural state of being, I would want that
if I could have that, though is that
even a thing you can have, the giving up
of the self, doesn’t the giving up
of the self challenge the whole notion
of possession, I think it does,
for if there is no self to let go
of the self, what’s the point of string,
aren’t we balloons, pretty balloons
rising, sad balloons falling,
isn’t this a party and didn’t you
promise to bring the cake?
–
Bob Hicok’s most recent collection is Words for Empty and Words for Full (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010). This Clumsy Living (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007), was awarded the 2008 Bobbitt Prize from the Library of Congress. His other books are Insomnia Diary (Pitt, 2004), Animal Soul (Invisible Cities Press, 2001),a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, Plus Shipping (BOA, 1998), and The Legend of Light (University of Wisconsin, 1995), which received the Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry and was named a 1997 ALA Booklist Notable Book of the Year. A recipient of five Pushcart Prizes, a Guggenheim and two NEA Fellowships, his poetry has been selected for inclusion in six volumes of Best American Poetry.