Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Bob Hicok’s "Thought" is a meditation on suffering, resilience, and the quiet rituals of care in the face of illness. It interweaves biblical allusion, gambling imagery, and the bodily experience of disease, constructing a narrative that is both intimate and expansive. At its core, the poem is about the limits of human control—how loss, sickness, and survival are dictated by forces beyond comprehension, and how people respond in their own ways, whether through faith, habit, or defiance.

The poem begins with an abrupt, fragmented thought: “of Job when her friend died and another and a third lost an arm in the scissors of a crash on 94.” The mention of Job—the biblical figure synonymous with suffering—immediately sets a tone of relentless hardship. By presenting Job and her friend in the same breath, the poem collapses the ancient and the personal, suggesting that suffering is both timeless and personal, that biblical-scale misfortune still unfolds in the everyday. The phrase “the scissors of a crash” is particularly evocative, turning an accident into something precise and mechanical, an instrument of fate rather than mere chance. The specificity of “94” (likely referring to Interstate 94) anchors this misfortune in the contemporary world, making it feel immediate and real.

The next lines shift to an unusual juxtaposition: “Of Vegas and Job / in Vegas staring at the odds for plague or the slaughter of sons and still placing his money against.” This image places Job—the epitome of faith and patience—in the gambling capital of the world, suggesting an absurd yet profound connection between faith and risk. Vegas, a city built on statistical probability, becomes the setting for Job’s suffering, where even he—who knows suffering all too well—bets against disaster. This ironic scene highlights human denial, our instinct to hope against all evidence that catastrophe won’t strike again. Yet, inevitably, “the next / bad piece of news was of her body turned riot.” The use of riot to describe illness suggests disorder and rebellion at the cellular level, as if her body itself has erupted into uncontrollable chaos. This line also serves as the poem’s turning point, shifting from external tragedy to internal suffering.

The metaphor of disease as noise follows: “Thought of cells going wild, a noise like gypsy moths / buzzing the green hem of the woods.” Cancer is imagined as a swarm, something invasive and relentless, consuming the edges of life’s natural order. The phrase “green hem of the woods” gives a delicate, almost pastoral image, contrasting with the aggressive buzzing of the moths. This tension—between the quiet beauty of nature and the invasive force of disease—recurs throughout the poem.

The poem then zooms in on a quiet, intimate moment: “and listened, the night before chemo as we sat outside, for the sound of flesh / eating itself.” This moment captures the eerie anticipation before treatment, the way illness can feel both invisible and all-consuming. Yet, instead of hearing the imagined “sound of flesh eating itself”, the speaker hears “the Morse code of her knitting instead.” This juxtaposition is striking—while the speaker listens for destruction, what he actually hears is creation, the rhythmic, deliberate act of knitting. Knitting becomes a metaphor for perseverance, for moving forward stitch by stitch even in the face of impending suffering.

The following lines emphasize the woman’s dignity and control: “and when I mentioned / the next day, she repaired my manners with a glare and preserved her own with a smile.” Her glare is a correction, a refusal to dwell in pity, while her smile maintains decorum. This small moment speaks volumes about her resilience—she refuses to be treated as a passive victim, choosing instead to dictate how she is perceived.

The poem then moves into the “ritual of a cure”, a phrase that captures both the hope and the grueling, repetitive nature of treatment. The image of “a dry river waiting for water” suggests a body deprived of its natural vitality, waiting for something that might restore it. Yet even in its drought, the “stones on its tongue are accustomed to a pulse”—life persists even in stillness, suggesting that the body remembers health, just as a riverbed remembers water.

The final lines present the most intimate and heartbreaking moment: “even thought I’d hold her hair back when she rested her face on the toilet, / until in one hand she gathered it / and with the other pushed me out.” The speaker assumes a caretaker’s role, expecting to help her through the indignities of illness, yet she asserts her independence. The action of gathering her hair into one hand—rather than allowing him to hold it—symbolizes a refusal to be helpless. The final act of pushing him out is both physical and symbolic: she is claiming control over her suffering, choosing solitude over being seen in a moment of vulnerability.

Hicok’s "Thought" is a poem about the ways people respond to suffering—through faith, denial, ritual, and control. It explores how illness is both personal and universal, and how the ones who endure it assert their agency even in the face of overwhelming odds. The poem does not offer easy resolutions or false hope; instead, it captures the quiet dignity of those who persist, even as their bodies turn riot.

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