Poem of the Week | July 14, 2009
Bob Hicok: "In the future, the future will be the past"
This week we are proud to feature “In the future, the future will be the past” by Bob Hicok, which is published in our more recent issue: TMR 32:2 (2009). Hicok’s This Clumsy Living received the Bobbitt Prize from the Library of Congress. He is a Guggenheim and NEA fellow this year, and his next book, Words for Empty and Words for Full, will be out in 2010 from Pitt.
In the future, the future will be the past
A woman screamed
during the protest between supporters
of Arabs on one side and Israelis
on the other that Jews should “go back
to the ovens.” There’s a picture of her
on the web in a white scarf, mouth open, everything
slightly blurry because she was moving
or the camera was or the Earth jumped a bit
at what she said. As I looked at the picture,
Eve was behind me folding a shirt, sleeves first
and then in half and then in half again
the other way, making me glad
I’m not a shirt, she coughed and I saw her
in an oven. This wasn’t a thought
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