by Bob Hicok

    A few hours after Des Moines

    the toilet overflowed¹.

    This wasn't the adventure it sounds.

    I sat with a man whose tattoos²

    weighed more than I did.

    He played Hendrix on mouth guitar.

    His Electric Ladyland lips

    weren't fast enough

    and if pitch and melody

    are the rudiments³ of music，

    this was just

    memory， a body nostalgic

    for the touch of adored sound.

    Hope's a smaller thing on a bus.

    You hope a forgotten smoke consorts⁴

    with lint⁵ in the pocket of last

    resort to be upwind

    of the human condition， that the baby

    sleeps

    and when this never happens，

    that she cries

    with the lullaby meter of the sea.

    We were swallowed by rhythm.

    The ultra blond

    who removed her wig⁶ and applied⁷

    fresh loops of duct tape

    to her skull⁸，

    her companion who held a mirror

    and popped his dentures

    in and out of place，

    the boy who cut stuffing

    from the seat where his mother

    should have been——

    there was a little more sleep

    in our thoughts，

    it was easier to yield.

    To what， exactly——

    the suspicion that what we watch

    watches back，

    cornfields that stare at our hands，

    downtowns

    that hold us in their windows

    through the night？

    Or faith， strange to feel

    in that zoo of manners.

    I had drool on my shirt and breath

    of the undead， a guy

    dropped empty Buds on the floor

    like gravity was born

    to provide this service，

    we were white and black trash

    who'd come

    in an outhouse on wheels and still

    some had grown——

    in touching⁹ the spirited shirts

    on clotheslines，

    after watching a sky of starlings

    flow like cursive

    over wheat——back into creatures

    capable of a wish.

    As we entered Arizona

    I thought I smelled the ocean，

    liked the lie of this

    and closed my eyes

    as shadows

    puppeted against my lids.

    We brought our failures with us，

    their taste， their smell.

    But the kid

    who threw up in the back

    pushed to the window anyway，

    opened it

    and let the wind clean his face，

    screamed something

    I couldn't make out

    but agreed with

    in shape， a sound I recognized

    as everything I'd come so far

    to give away.

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