2 a.m.

Frank in southside Grand Rapids stapled pages
of the Gideon to his stomach and stood
outside Social Services, he thought his soul
was in the streetlights -- why they buzzed, flickered --
he was hit once by a truck and once
by a Cadillac with curb feelers like everything
gets touched.

By the time I got from my porch to Frank,
he was breathing like Toby getting high
with a paper bag over his mouth, ventilating
glue and I only talked to Frank twice, once
when he knocked on my door and asked
if I'd seen his face, once before the ambulance
drove him away from the blood he left in the shape
of Florida on the street.

I don't know why I miss things, I don't know what things
I miss, nostalgia comes with my body
because stars are running through me, carbon, loneliness,
all the elements, I am the remnant of light, of leaving.

Frank asked me to take care of his dog and looked
to his left, where there was an infinity of no dogs,
I said I would and have tried to care for something
that doesn't exist -- me, you -- tried to live
as if holy words are nailed to every gesture.

And yes, I've been drinking, usually white
but I'm drinking red tonight, call it
Blood of Christ brand wine, yet another reason
I'm not in advertising. The city
has a halo and the moon has a halo, I'd like a halo,
that's what my buzz is, a halo around my brain,
that must be what Frank saw in the lights, a halo
like baby Jesus wore in paintings
below white winged angels, chubby babies
who knew better than to land on earth.

* Bob Hicok's poetry has appeared in such magazines as The New Yorker, Ploughshares, and Poetry. He is the author of Animal Soul, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, He is also the author of The Legend of Light , which won the 1995 Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry and was an ALA Booklist Notable Book of the Year, and Plus Shipping which is very likable on its own merits.