This is this

“It’s funny how often we lie to ourselves.”

Cadavre Exquis by Valentine Hugo (1934)

This is this

by Bob Hicok

A river pauses then goes on. A wind
clears its throat in the moment before
great oratory. A cow in one field
and a horse in the field beside it
will never meet or hear gossip about each other
from me. We’ve now come to the end
of mapping out where the Kingdom of Heaven
will be built if the permits are approved.
I could mean a Walmart and am just trying
to deceive us both, to give us hope.
It’s funny how often we lie to ourselves.
Grass, though, always tells the truth.
It’s thundering and I regret never buying
drums so I could enter the conversation.
When I was a kid, drum solos were a thing
on variety shows, which were a thing
on TV, which was the thing, the root
at the center of almost everyone’s life.
Imagine if we all watched silence instead.
Imagine this poem as smoke in your hair,
the fire almost out, stars
taking the sky back from the flames
you’d stared at your reflection in.

This poem was first published in 149review.