Good morning

You can never go home again / if you were never there in the first place.

Water Lillies: Morning) by Claude Monet (1914)

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Good morning

by Bob Hicok

Woke up French. Je suis Bob. I live in a little town 
in the south of France. So small it doesn't have a name. 
I own two donkeys though one likes to be called a burro. 
Voltaire used to vacation here. He'd look out to sea 
and think, I am Voltaire and you are not. The sea 
would look at him and think, Shhhh, shhhh.
I'm really an electrician who lives in Farmington, MI.
I woke up hungover, which isn't recommended for an alcoholic. 
First drinks in twelve years. It was like riding a bike again 
without a seat or handlebars all the way down a mountain 
made of ice. I'm really the poet writing this poem. So far 
it's taken me far away, given me a trade and brought me 
most of the way home. You can never go home again 
if you were never there in the first place. I woke up 
in the middle of the road, between a bear and a pack 
of coyotes. Under all of us was the caption, What's wrong 
with this picture? a) None of us were smiling. 
b) All of us were smiling. c) If you look closely 
at the stars, you can tell they've been photoshopped. 
Nothing's that beautiful. Or everything's that beautiful.
The bear is pointing at her heart, as if to say, 
I am the divine. I could feel it, the sense of living 
outside of time. Maybe today is the day 
I'll show up for my life.