The gift (I am not asking for)

It’s Bob’s birthday today, but we’re getting the gift — a previously unpublished poem!

^{Still Life: Vase with Pink Roses by Vincent van Gogh}

Dear Readers,

Today is Bob’s birthday. He woke up and wrote a poem like any other day, and shared it with me in the morning after I wished him. I asked if I could publish it here. Ever so generous in his deed and economical in his words, he said: sure. So here’s a brand new Bob Hicok poem, written this morning, after he turned 64. That’s 8 squared. I love numbers, and I love Bob and his poems. I am so glad he was born. And that he was born to write, and love.

May we overflow with love,

Karan

The gift (I am not asking for)

by Bob Hicok

My belief that sex on its own is like
carrying around a thigh bone and calling it a leg
doomed me as a cruiser. Never slutted it up,
and at 64 (happy birthday to me), it's too late
to go to the bar and ask a beautiful woman
if she'd like to spend a night and then a life
with me. Plus I'd have to gather and staple
the skin at the back of my neck to pull the skin
under my chin tight, otherwise I'd appear
to have a face and a half, and not all of me
heading in the same direction. And I'd have to take Eve
with me, ask her opinion on the faces and bods,
dresses and expressions. I was also never
a tightrope walker, bank teller, anteater, résumé,
cul-de-sac, minor god in a forgotten pantheon,
and am suddenly nostalgic for all the things
I never did or was. I think what I'm getting at
is this is the wrong life. I always wanted to be
the feeling of walking out of a bar
after two drinks into cold air and stars,
turning west, toward home, seeing an orange cat
cleaning itself on the hood of a Deuce and a Quarter,
followed by a minute or two of wanting nothing
for or thinking anything about the self, my mind
for once looking through a clean window at the world.
No offense to anyone, my penis included,
but that feeling was the best sex I ever had.
However, the end of desire can't be desired,
only stumbled into or given by some moments as a gift.
So I'm not asking you to turn me into that sensation
on my birthday, god, or promising to believe in
and love you if you do. I'm not saying that
or anything like that, though I'll note that you have
about eighteen hours left. I promise to act surprised
when I open the box of wanting nothing more
than I already have.

Originally published here on January 19, 2024. Buy Bob Hicok’s most recent collection here!