Man of the House
By Bob Hicok
It was a misunderstanding.
I got into bed, made love
with the woman I found there,
called her honey, mowed the lawn,
had three children, painted
the house twice, fixed the furnace,
overcame an addiction to blue pills,
read Spinoza every night
without once meeting his God,
buried one child, ate my share
of Jell-o and meatloaf,
went away for nine hours a day
and came home hoarding my silence,
built a ferris wheel in my mind,
bolt by bolt, then it broke
just as it spun me to the top.
Turns out I live next door.
Copyright Credit: Hicok, Bob. "Man of the House" from The Legend of Light. Copyright © 1995. Reprinted by permission of The University of Wisconsin Press.
Source: The Legend of Light (University of Wisconsin Press, 1995)