Red Rover Red Rover. Bob Hicok

hours, the world was empty

      of McDonald’s, lawn mowers, For Sale signs,

      capitalism; it was like looking in a mirror

      that ignored my face, that saw

      where I really came from, that stared back

      at the savanna inside my bones.

      I pulled over and built a house

      of my affection: I would live there

      with distance and mountains

      and the intelligence of rainbows,

      who are smart to be untouchable.

      If we caught them, we’d put them in zoos,

      cut them open, try to civilize them,

      teach them French, teach them war.

      I pulled over, sat on the hood

      and leaned into the air

      with my capless and bald head,

      the bite of it, the hello of it,

      and decided to stand taller within myself,

      like a swing set or giraffe.

      I’ve driven along fracked fields,

      where mountains have been scalped

      and refineries channel apocalypse

      with their forests of pipes, their fire

      and smoke,

      and while some places make me eager

      for lobotomy, Alaska

      makes me want to be better, think better,

      do better: to fit in. Not that I know

      what that is or means. Not that we can.

      Just that we better. Just that we must.

      Inside job

      He talks more than a river.

      Louder than a gun

      doing the times tables.

      Sometimes he smells

      like three-day-old scallops.

      Sometimes four.

      Whatever anyone says to him

      is reason to say something

      about himself.

      I avoided him in the halls.

      I avoided him as an idea

      of what a person might be.

      I once saw him up ahead of me

      and turned around.

      I was in New York,

      he was in Boston.

      That’s how good my eyesight is.

      That’s how much he made me think,

      Here is a man

      who’d trim his toenails

      in an airport.

      Then I saw him in a park with a boy.

      The boy was wearing a helmet.

      The boy could barely stand on his own.

      The boy’s eyes always looked up

      and his head bobbed

      as if studying to be a balloon.

      This is Trevor, the man said,

      this is my son. The man smiled.

      Though our faces are no good

      at putting out forest fires,

      his happiness could have,

      his pride. This is my son.

      He said it twice

      as if I hadn’t heard,

      as if making sure

      I would spread the news.

      I will spread the news.

      A man who smells

      like three-day-old scallops

      has a son named Trevor

      who will never live on his own.

      Now when I see the man

      I ask after his health.

      I want him to live forever.

      I want the moon to stop

      sneaking away from us

      a little at a time.

      I want him to forgive me

      for giving up

      on looking into his eyes.

      A nature documentary

      Worrying I worry too much,

      I try to explain Jell-O to my cats,

      who sniff it and walk away,

      one to watch a wasp

      digging out a hole under a rock beside the shed,

      the other to watch the wasp-watching cat

      while I eat Jell-O on the porch with my fingers.

      Two at first, then my whole hand,

      as if orange Jell-O were an actual orange,

      not all of it,

      just a few slurped chunks from the pan,

      after which I join the watching of the wasp,

      no longer worrying about worrying, just worrying

      and enjoying the relative quiet,

      like when the dentist’s drill stops

      and I can hear the chainsaw solo

      without distraction in the orchestra

      of my head.

      Curious whether the sky is where I left it,

      I lie on my back on the drive and look up;

      it’s still there,

      though none of the paintings of clouds

      are dry.

      The white cat comes over quickly

      and licks the hair on the side of my head,

      as if I’m another cat. I turn my head,

      look in his one milky and one green eye,

      love that he’s adopted me

      and lick his head a few times to show it.

      And for about seven seconds

      I’m not even worrying, not even

      about the cat hair in my mouth, thicker

      and more honest than human hair,

      the other cat on her way down the drive

      to look for frogs to kill

      and partially eat or not eat at all,

      the white cat already at ease

      with himself at all times,

      when I start to worry again,

      now that I don’t know how lucky I am,

      that there’s no unit of measure for gratitude,

      as the narrator says, Once again we see the poet

      not leaving well enough alone,

      starting