I really, really like this:



Monarchs, roses

They are matchbooks, lit matchbooks that fly.
I drive fast and east
to the radioed melody of a woman
and sunlight and my hand
kiting out the window
in a blue car beside a stream
traveling west and south
to the Gulf of Mexico to join
the water that is the sky over Atlantis.
I am an arrow of happiness and I like
root beer and walking from Brooklyn
to the Met and standing
inside the first sigh of grass
in the morning but when my joy
strikes a pair of wings the color
of hydrogen
exploding and the monarch
falls in the rear view like a shirt
shot from its hanger, I want
a tiny piece of chalk
so I can trace the body
for the detective who will slap me
and say, we know you did it, Rocky.
That I'm not Rocky
won't stop justice from smoking
its cigarette in my face
and I slow down too much
for the people piling up
behind me on their way to some other
massacre but I like
cows and the cello and being a killer
as seldom as possible. When I stop
and dismantle the car, you are welcome
to the tires and the horn but leave
the radio, this woman
sings like her voice is a rose bush,
is thorns and complex blooms
and it forgives us
just by letting us know it exists.



-Bob Hicok