Red Rover Red Rover. Bob Hicok

or Merwin do?

       Stops and starts

       I keep a weather station in my head

       Every machine has its parts

       America: a primer

       The Book of The Way: a song of now

       When illness is cure

       O my pa-pa

       Meditation on dust

       Rapture

       Ode to now

       Worship

       Acknowledgments

       About the Author

       Also by Bob Hicok

       Copyright

       Special Thanks

       Listen

      To un-

      become or scream or drown or dread, to if, to crown

      a wear of heads upon my thorns, to then and when and yes and please

      and love, or how a spoon can shine and drive a moon insane,

      explain: upon my breath I have no ice in mind, nor stab or beat

      or leave an ant or ghost behind, to hold and braid and brace

      and lift a face, a sigh, if dive is rise and lies a poor disguise.

      A gift should kiss its horse upon the mouth: I troth to shrug

      and run and dream and lash myself unto my past,

      to walk as if my muddle is a map that looks to me

      to lead it home, to sing an edge upon a steel that cuts a split

      into a join, if one is math and hole is whole, if I am fall and fear

      and skies, if you will stand before a door hewn into air and time,

      and thrive, and knock, I will wear my heart upon my eyes

       RED ROVER RED ROVER

      A partial list of a life

      A bird says You are home, you are home at the window.

      I put down my suitcase and try to soothe the jet out of my ears

      by saying hello to the bird and then nothing at the table

      to the salt and pepper. Running my hand over the claw marks

      where Sasha jumped on the table to empty the sugar bowl,

      I decide five years is the half-life of my mourning

      and begin planning maybe considering possibly thinking about

      accidentally turning into the shelter in another five years,

      though not necessarily getting out of the car to meet

      the unwanted dogs. Ten feet away is an X on the floor

      only Eve and I can see where Eve collapsed

      when her brain tried to run away from itself

      but was stuck in its panic room and clawed her frontal lobes

      instead: luckily I was there to hold her and turn the fall

      into a whisper instead of a crash. Here’s where we light the menorah

      every year, taking turns with the match. I was standing here

      for “no cancer” and there for a different call

      that made me wish I had a hook to pass through my nose

      to remove my bones and set them free. Every time I pee

      I stare through a big window at a mountain that fits inside

      the window like a painting; through that door’s a field

      we’ve crossed naked with naked stars; down there’s a river

      we can see flash a bit depending on where we stand

      and hear samba some when rain has tried to wipe the slate clean

      of dirt and all of us. If these walls could talk they’d have mouths

      and lips I’d be happy to kiss. A baritone wind

      just pulled itself out of its own hat and I know a better poem

      when I hear one: wind and crows, wind and crows, wind and robins

      and the silences between them and crows.

      For the sad Wallendas

      If the sky set out to be beautiful

      we’d turn away or throw our shoes at it

      or call it pretentious as we went to sleep,

      none of which has happened on my watch

      except the second and those were flip-flops

      and it wasn’t the sky I was trying to hit

      but whatever makes a friend stick a needle in his arm

      as if sewing the rip in his blood closed. When he died

      the logical response was duh, the emotional response

      was louder, more smashy/breaky

      and I see this in people all the time

      when I’m looking in the mirror, out the window,

      at a park, a car, to the end of Canned Goods

      where a woman cries in the direction of a can of peas

      and I almost touch her shoulder as I pass, with my hand

      and also a deer, the spirit of leaping, then I’m off

      to peaches and barely hanging on

      to the trapeze of the day, you say falling

      I say when, you say net

      I say the great ones

      go without, as well as the plain ones, the stones,

      the feathers, the torches, and everyone in between

      The feast

      I’m hungry. Nothing I’ve put in my body

      has changed this. I ripped Genesis from a bible

      and devoured it, thinking I’d feel filled

      and whole