TRUE STORY
by Bob Hicok
I can’t escape the possibility
I was meant to own a Zamboni
but got stuck with three can openers instead.
Or that I should have kissed your knees
last night when you got home
from being with your friend
who just had her cat killed. I know
I’m supposed to write “put to sleep,”
but can she wake her up now? No.
And it was kind of you to rush over
right after work and you deserved praise
in some form and your knees
don’t get enough attention, I guess
I’m saying. Where would we have gone
on the Zamboni? Dunno, but how
is certain: slowly. Here’s a headline
you never have to worry about:
Three Canadians Killed
in Zamboni Drag Racing Accident.
I’d buy a newspaper to tell the world
how much I love you. Tons. Geegobs.
And how many cats have we cried over
so far? Four, and one dog, and soon
we’ll start adding parents
to that list, then one of us
will look at empty chairs around the house
and hate them. So knees, elbows, hair,
and of course the more famous bits:
I kiss thee in life and in poems,
which are not life, more like a flashlight
turned on in a black hole. Geegobs
is a lot. Geegobs squared is more
accurate. But is amount really
the correct measure of love?
I love you greenly, gymnastically, variously
and Stradavariusly, I love you
with my heart shadow and my brain fog
and my suitcase-packing skills. The suitcase
I’m packing for when you go
to the next room and I have to follow.
Poor kitty. Poor friend. Poor us.
Who have to deal with mortality
using a limited toolkit. There’s crying,
drinking, toking, injecting, breaking
dishes and popsicle sticks, and loving
longer and softer those who remain.
How long ago did there cease to be a time
I can remember being without you?
1897, I think, the year the jumping jack
was invented, the year levitating
was added to the Olympics, the year
I first dreamed I was alive
and saw you coming around the corner
and thought, So this
is the famous happiness
I’ve heard so much about.
—from Rattle #84, Summer 2024
Bob Hicok: “I like starting poems. After I start a poem, I like getting to the middle, and after the middle, an end seems a good thing to reach. When the end is reached, I like doing everything that isn’t writing poems, until the next day, when my desk is exactly where I left it, though I am a slightly different person than the last time we met.”
