Logic by Bob Hicok

"When someone says they're all ears, I know they're not without looking."

Logic
by Bob Hicok

When someone says they're all ears, I know they're not
without looking, I'm a detective like that, but imagine
if this someone who is all ears also said, I love you
with all my heart, they'd really be saying, I love you
with all my ears, which — setting aside the dilemma
of how an ear could say any of this — would be wonderful,
a love of one hundred percent listening, at least
on paper, until you start living that love, when like
twelve minutes in, or a month, a year, tops,
you'd be tired of the sound of your voice and want
at least a few of the ears to be mouths, or tongues,
mouths and tongues, since one without the other
is harder to imagine than rain without sky or peanut butter
without spaghetti right next to it in the cupboard.
My goal is to be thirty four percent ears, zero percent
fists, thirteen percent hydrogen, six percent sass,
twenty two percent "tell me more," and seventeen percent
a man who helps war statues climb down
from their pedestals and walk to the nearest swing set
or sea, whichever they want when I convince them
there's a better way to live. How? That's
a good question. You must be twelve percent
scientific method, which is terrific. I was thinking
if we all wore t-shirts that read, Roses Are Red
and Violence Is Stupid, it would change nothing,
but that sartorial unity might be the spark
that brings us together around the vulnerability
of flowers, which is not that different
from the vulnerability of otters, which is a cousin
to the shyness of your shadow, which reminds me
how easy it is to break a person into halves,
or quarters, which sounds like I'm making change,
doesn't it, rather than begging for it.

★ First published in ONLY POEMS ★