Who cleaned up the Last Supper?
These would be my people.
Maybe hung over, wanting
desperately a better job,
...
My left hand will live longer than my right. The rivers
of my palms tell me so.
Never argue with rivers. Never expect your lives to finish
at the same time. I think
...
My father's head has become a mystery to him.
We finally have something in common.
When he moves his head his eyes
get big as roses filled
...
Drunk, I kissed the moon
where it stretched on the floor.
I'd removed happiness from a green bottle,
both sipped and gulped
...
is a system of posture for wood.
A way of not falling down
for twigs that happens
to benefit birds. I don't know.
...
I called a man today. After he said
hello and I said hello came a pause
during which it would have been
confusing to say hello again so I said
...
A bee in the field. The house on the mountain
reveals itself to have been there through summer.
It's not a bee but a horse eating frosted grass
in the yawn light. Secrets, the anguish of smoke
...
It’s hard being in love
with fireflies. I have to do
all the pots and pans.
When asked to parties
...
The dog licks my hand as I worry
about the left nipple
of the woman in the bathroom.
She is drying her hair, the woman
...
A few hours after Des Moines
the toilet overflowed.
This wasn't the adventure it sounds.
I sat with a man whose tattoos
...
At forty-eight, to be given water,
which is most of the world, given life
in water, which is most of me, given ease,
which is most of what I lack, here, where walls
...
Our fathers have formed a poetry workshop.
They sit in a circle of disappointment over our fastballs
and wives. We thought they didn't read our stuff,
whole anthologies of poems that begin, My father never,
...
I heard from people after the shootings. People
I knew well or barely or not at all. Largely
the same message: how horrible it was, how little
there was to say about how horrible it was.
...
The best job I had was moving a stone
from one side of the road to the other.
This required a permit which required
a bribe. The bribe took all my salary.
...
He has five children, I’m papa
to a hundred pencils.
I bought the chair he sat in
from a book of chairs,
...
It was a misunderstanding.
I got into bed, made love
with the woman I found there,
called her honey, mowed the lawn,
...
I sell one bristle brushes. People
seeking two bristle brushes I send
to the guy on Amsterdam, who’s in a rush.
I may have one customer a year
...
We were young and it was an accomplishment
to have a body. No one said this. No one
said much beyond “throw me that sky” or
“can the lake sleep over?” The lake could not.
...
A cooler
head of lettuce prevailed, but when the actor
asked his question and paused
for us to watch him pause and think
...
At the desk where the boy sat, he sees the Chicago River.
It raises its hand.
It asks if metaphor should burn.
He says fire is the basis for all forms of the mouth.
...
Bob Hicok is an American poet, born in 1960. He currently is an associate professor of creative writing at Virginia Tech. He is from Michigan and before teaching owned and ran a successful automotive die design business. His first book, The Legend of Light, (1995) was chosen by Carolyn Kizer for the 1995 Felix Pollak Prize. This book, published by the University of Wisconsin Press, was later chosen an ALA Booklist Notable Book of the Year. Plus Shipping followed in 1998. His 2001 release, Animal Soul, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He has published two other books -- Insomnia Diary (2004) and This Clumsy Living (2007), both with the University of Pittsburgh Press. "This Clumsy Living" received the 2008 Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry from the Library of Congress. His poems have appeared in such publications as The New Yorker, Poetry Magazine, The Paris Review and The American Poetry Review, as well as four volumes of The Best American Poetry. Awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2008 and two NEA Fellowships, his work has also been reprinted three times in the Pushcart Anthology. His works include the following: This Clumsy Living, 2007, the University of Pittsburgh Press; Insomnia Diary, 2004, the University of Pittsburgh Press; Animal Soul, 2003, Invisible Cities Press; Plus Shipping, 1998, BOA Editions, Ltd.; and The Legend of Light, 1995 University of Wisconsin Press.)
By Their Works
Who cleaned up the Last Supper?
These would be my people.
Maybe hung over, wanting
desperately a better job,
standing with rags
in hand as the window
beckons with hills
of yellow grass. In Da Vinci,
the blue robed apostle
gesturing at Christ
is saying, give Him the check.
What a mess they've made
of their faith. My God
would put a busboy
on earth to roam
among the waiters
and remind them to share
their tips. The woman
who finished one
half eaten olive
and scooped the rest
into her pockets,
walked her tiny pride home
to children who looked
at her smile and saw
the salvation of a meal.
All that week
at work she ignored
customers who talked
of Rome and silk
and crucifixions,
though she couldn't stop
thinking of this man
who said thank you
each time she filled
His glass.