Best of the Net 2006  



Liquidity Issues


I open the door but the fog won’t take me in.
I wear a white shirt to resemble the kiss
of the fog but the fog won’t take me in. I ask
the psychologist who says whatever you feel
is fine
if feeling like killing a psychologist
who says whatever you feel is fine is fine
but the fog won’t take me in. I have been
open, well dressed and honest about my feelings
but the fog won’t take me in. I was not told
how difficult it would be to be the lover
of fog. Of all the things I wasn’t told,
not being told I wouldn’t be told many things
was salt in the wounds. Wouldn’t salt
in the wounds make you want to eat the body?
Never mind me. Mind the fog. She is beautiful.
I am not supposed to say beautiful in a poem.
She is beauty full. We should be given a book
at birth full of everything we are not
going to be told. Instead we are spanked
at birth. Notice that some of us spanked
at birth cannot express our love for water
suspended in air without violence
entering the fray. I want violence to exit
the fray. I want the fray to be neutered
of the fray. Therefore I have cause
to say therefore, to lean my mouth
against your pregnant core. Resting there,
my lips have little to do but hum
until the soft shell of water breaks.
Had my lips not been forsaken by the fog,
the baby in your vault would have known
more loneliness than required. Not often
does a man I know as well as me get to help
subvert the law of loneliness. Although
it is not really a law, more of an edict.

-Bob Hicok (Born Magazine)





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