Poet/Stalker

Poet/Stalker


by Bob Hicok


for J.L.



Thanks for your fan letter—I’ve built a shrine.
I was up all night thinking of you
up all night studying my use of slant
and internal rhyme in A Shoemaker’s
Dystopia. By line 317 the scheme I fear
is obvious, so I was giddy as salmon
at spawn that you found my little joke
in the coupling of descending colon
and telephone. Did you know that if you add
the numbers associated with each letter
of your last name, multiply this sum
by the height of the Washington Monument (restored),
divide by Avogadro’s number and cube,
the result is the base 8 equivalent
of the length of my inseam? I didn’t eat
while making those calculations
but I rarely do. I’m allergic to parsley
and magnetic stones. Certain sounds—human
breathing, water running over skin—
cause me to shiver in a manner reminiscent
of distemper, you’d think they’d have a drug
for that but they don’t. I can’t tell you
how much it meant to me that Ransacking
the Immortals moved you to tears, all
I’ve ever asked of my poetry is that it make
someone cry. I’ve been at this
for 37 years and not one of my 82 books
has been reviewed, unless you count
that abysmal treatment of A Wayward Wayfarer
in the Hamiltonian Gazette and Weekly Shopper.
Your fan letter was like a rope to a climber
who yearns for oxygen-deprived air
of the pinnacle’s stunning vistas, like a sonata
in August when the leaves have been hammered
to a musical bronze. Do you see how you’ve set
my pen free? In a country of 270 million,
if a book of poetry sells a thousand copies,
the poet drinks root beer schnapps
until she throws up at the feet of the Muse,
this is why the Greeks always showed Erato
& Calliope in galoshes. I myself do not drink,
there’s a funny story behind that
but the terms of the settlement prevent me
from going into detail. (Though Ode
to Jonestown has certain clarifying
references.) You’ll be happy to know
I’m writing a poem for you, I’m on
the twenty-first quatrain but stuck
trying to rhyme the line, and he did bend
the swan’s neck of the water jug
to the languid aspidistra. Did you know
from the street anyone can see
through your blinds? I tarpapered my windows
long ago, months pass without light
touching my skin. Since your letter
I’ve been an explosion of feelings.

I won’t sleep until we meet. Yours. Truly.




Bob Hicok
Published in Ploughshares