By Bob Hicok
I don’t have much time. I’m an important person
to chickadees and mourning doves, whose feeder
was smashed last night by a raccoon. Soon
I’ll be wielding duct tape, noticing the dew,
wanting to bathe in it, hoping the awkwardness
of yesterday (three instances of people talking
with bear traps for mouths) never repeats itself
and we all go forward as if to a party
for a five year old who refuses to smash candy
out of a burro. It’s too cute, the burro, too real
for him not to ask his mother, can I keep it,
and when the other children cry, they’re given
lake front property, it works out, this
is what I see for you, the working out. Think of the year
behind you as a root or think of going to Spain
and feeling sorry for bulls or don’t think,
this isn’t the SATs, don’t think but stay.
Stay happy, honest, stay as tall as you are
as long as you can using giraffes if you need to
to see each other above the crowd. I have these moments
when I realize I’m not breathing, my wife
is never why I’m not breathing and always why
I want to lick a human heart, remember that each of you
is half of why your bed will sag toward the middle
of being a boat and that you both will sag
if you’re lucky together, be lucky together
and acquire in sagging more square footage
to kiss and to hold. And always remember
that I hate you for being so much closer
than I am to where none of us ever get to go
again - first look, first touch, first
inadvertent brush of breath or hair, first time
you turned over and looked at who was surprising
you by how fully she was there.
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It was my 24th anniversary, not my first, but it was still a nice day -- fairly quiet early on, getting work done, then Adam went to a World Cup party that was doubling as a birthday party for a friend, and I went for a walk (it was over 90 degrees, even the bunnies were sprawled in the shade looking overheated), When Paul came home from work, we went to downtown Rockville for dinner and the end of the US-Belgium game, which was being broadcast on an oversize screen in the town square.
The rest of my day was an equal mix of food and sports -- the US losing the game, fantastic black pepper tofu and curry at Taste of Saigon, Nadal getting thumped out of Wimbledon by a kid the same age he was when he thumped Federer, ice cream, the Orioles and Nationals both beating teams they would have had no excuse for losing to. When we got home, we watched Winter's Tale, which I still like a lot even though it has flaws as an adaptation of the book on which it's based. A few pics:
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