I'd rather play at hug o'war

Other Lives and Dimensions and Finally a Love Poem

My left hand will live longer than my right. The rivers
of my palms tell me so.
Never argue with rivers. Never expect your lives to finish
at the same time. I think

praying, I think clapping is how hands mourn. I think
staying up and waiting
for paintings to sigh is science. In another dimension this
is exactly what's happening,

it's what they write grants about: the chromodynamics
of mournful Whistlers,
the audible sorrow and beta decay of "Old Battersea Bridge."
I like the idea of different

theres and elsewheres, an Idaho known for bluegrass,
a Bronx where people talk
like violets smell. Perhaps I am somewhere patient, somehow
kind, perhaps in the nook

of a cousin universe I've never defiled or betrayed
anyone. Here I have
two hands and they are vanishing, the hollow of your back
to rest my cheek against,

your voice and little else but my assiduous fear to cherish.
My hands are webbed
like the wind-torn work of a spider, like they squeezed
something in the womb

but couldn't hang on. One of those other worlds
or a life I felt
passing through mine, or the ocean inside my mother's belly
she had to scream out.

Here when I say "I never want to be without you,"
somewhere else I am saying
"I never want to be without you again." And when I touch you
in each of the places we meet

in all of the lives we are, it's with hands that are dying
and resurrected.
When I don't touch you it's a mistake in any life,
in each place and forever.

- Bob Hicok

ETA: Discovered via the wonderful musesfool.

So. It's quite possible my new English professor is going to make me insane by semester end. He has this really meandering, stream-of-consciousness lecture style. He's brilliant and a fellow word nerd, but oh my GOD, it's WEDNESDAY NIGHT. I've been at work ALL FUCKING DAY. You really want to make me cut you with this "I always go to 9:50" bullshit. (Speaking of, briary_flower, the poetry portion, which will happen mid-semester [we're covering drama now], runs the gamut. I spent a good half-hour ignoring him and bouncing from one poem to the next. We're talking ee cummings, Pablo Neruda, Edgar Allen Poe, W.H. Auden, Yeats, Keats, etc., etc., etc. I was completely geeking out.)

Holy fucking hell, I'm exhausted.

Also, HI EVERYBODY! I didn't mean to take such a long break from LJ, but I had my surgery last month and took three weeks off from just about everything. They took four and half pounds off of each breast (as Gabs put it, "You were packin a frickin baby around all this time!"), and while I'm not into real bras yet (it's sports bras all the way), I am officially a C-cup. Plus they were able to save both nipples so I can potentially breast feed my future babies. My god is it rad.

Anyway, I think that's enough of an update for now. I need to get some actual work done. Oh and write my paragraph on what I think is "good English." Did I mention my professor is a wee titch NUTS? Yeah.

Oh! Almost forgot. buffyx, blahblahologist, and halfway2home, thank you all for my Christmas cards! They were such lovely little surprises. (V, I LOVED the Office stuff, too. I was giggling like such a damn fool when I opened the package; Mom was giving me her "I don't get fangirls" look.)

ETA: Jensen Ackles, we need to talk. Really? This is what you spend your precious time off doing? REALLY? I want my seven bucks back, fucker.

I went over to the UT Nursing school to grab a salad from their little deli (oh, French Corner, your boxed lunches may suck like a Dyson but your salad with grilled chicken is hum-inducing yummy), and fuck was it gorgeous outside! One of those rare spring days – high, warm sun, cool shade, and a lovely, gentle breeze – that Houston experiences about four times a year. It made for a nice jaunt across the courtyard between the buildings.

I'm definitely driving home with the windows down this afternoon.