Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Bob Hicok’s "Mortal Shower" is a humorous yet poignant meditation on aging, self-perception, and love’s ability to reshape our relationship with our own bodies. The poem begins with a moment of self-recognition—or perhaps self-alienation—as the speaker encounters his own reflection in a Pittsburgh hotel room. The specificity of location immediately grounds the poem in the mundane, yet the act of seeing oneself in a mirror, particularly from behind, introduces an almost surreal sense of disassociation. The speaker's "butt" becomes a character in itself, separate from his "face," signaling the way time alters our awareness of our own physicality.

The poem moves fluidly between self-deprecating humor and deeper existential reflections, a hallmark of Hicok’s style. The speaker reminisces about his youth, when his "hair no longer resembles an ad for Jell-O pudding," a wry nod to the way people’s appearances can become associated with fleeting cultural images. His concern with how his body once looked—"about the extent of grip and rise," "watched women’s eyes follow,"—contrasts sharply with his current indifference to those past preoccupations. The shift from vanity to acceptance unfolds through a rapid sequence of life events: "Then love and car payments, love and the sofa needs to be moved, love and her grandmother dies, my grandmother dies." Love, in this list, is not separate from the banalities and tragedies of life—it is embedded in them. The rhythm of these lines captures the relentless march of time, in which aesthetic concerns become trivial next to financial burdens, loss, and companionship.

The speaker acknowledges aging as an unavoidable process—"wattles to come, please God if dentures only partials." The humor here lightens what could be a somber realization, but it also highlights an underlying acceptance. There’s no fight against time, no lament for youth; rather, the poem suggests a quiet resignation, softened by the presence of love. His partner "likes my ass and lies about its travels," a moment of affectionate dishonesty that reaffirms the depth of their bond. The speaker's self-worth is no longer tied to his youthful attractiveness but rather to the intimacy and shared life he has with his partner.

The poem’s closing lines reinforce this sense of joy despite impermanence. The speaker revels in the present moment: "I’m in Pittsburgh tonight and with her, mirrors don’t scare me." There’s an ease, a comfort in love’s presence that outweighs the fear of aging. The final image—"a robin flew into the window today but shook it off, just dizzy, stunned by reflection"—serves as a quiet metaphor for the speaker’s own confrontation with his changing body. Like the bird, he is momentarily "stunned by reflection," but he, too, shakes it off. Aging, like the robin’s collision, is disorienting but ultimately survivable.

Structurally, the poem’s flowing, conversational tone reflects the movement of thought itself—unstructured yet purposeful. The lack of punctuation in many places mirrors how the mind wanders, linking disparate thoughts with the loose logic of recollection. The juxtaposition of humor and sincerity allows Hicok to explore weighty themes without sentimentality, making "Mortal Shower" a meditation not just on aging, but on the way love transforms our perception of time and self.

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