Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Bob Hicok’s "Into the Breach" is a meditation on human connection, on the tension between intimacy and silence, and on the invisible fractures within relationships. The poem navigates the quiet ways in which we listen to one another, the barriers we erect between ourselves and our neighbors, and the longing for a kind of communication that transcends words. The speaker is caught between the instinct to reach out and the awareness that certain distances—physical, emotional—are not easily bridged.

The opening lines introduce a desire for transparency: "I want to tell them we can hear / what they say." The pronoun "they" is left undefined at first, creating an ambiguous sense of eavesdropping—who is overhearing whom? The next few lines add an ironic, almost whimsical contrast: "With coffee / in hand or a hot fudge cream puff / tell them." The speaker imagines a moment of revelation couched in casual, almost absurd normalcy, as if difficult truths could be delivered alongside something sweet. The idea of "blue sky on a plate" and "a river for their living room" reinforces this surreal hospitality—the speaker wants to offer something vast, something impossible, as a gesture of goodwill, a way to "break the ice."

This generosity, however, is laced with hesitation. The speaker does not wish to alarm or accuse; instead, he wants to convey his "nothing but opulence, but long days / of wind in the leaves." The contrast between material wealth ("opulence") and something ephemeral ("wind in the leaves") suggests a deeper truth—the speaker does not wish to intrude, but he also knows that something weighty and intangible exists in the spaces between people.

The next lines express frustration with the limitations of language: "I’ll always / be surprised we’re not equipped / with fingers more telepathic." This yearning for direct, tactile communication is echoed in the next passage: "I want skin that brushing skin / transmits my true dream, making / trust and the handshake, / making faith and the kiss / one in the same." The speaker craves a world where physical contact could replace the inadequacies of speech, where trust and faith are immediate and unambiguous. But the phrasing also suggests that this kind of clarity is impossible—communication is fraught, imperfect, prone to misinterpretation.

The speaker imagines scenarios in which he could reach out, bridge the gap between himself and others: "I would touch him / on the shoulder as he waxes his car, / would slip my hand under hers / as she lifts a tray / of nasturtiums." These gestures are tender, small acts of connection, but they remain hypothetical. There is an underlying sadness here—these moments of closeness are imagined, not real. The speaker wishes his intentions could be understood without the need for explanation, that his touch could communicate something beyond words. But words remain necessary, and their absence leaves space for misunderstanding.

The poem then turns inward, shifting from an imagined connection with others to the speaker’s own home: "They’d believe me / when I say it’s more than silence / I’m after, more than a night’s / sleep made of ocean, deep ocean / with me on top." The metaphor of sleep as "deep ocean" suggests both a desire for peace and a fear of what lies beneath the surface. The phrase "with me on top" hints at an effort to stay afloat, to avoid being pulled under by whatever unspoken tensions exist.

Then comes the most searing revelation: "They’d know / in our house there have been / blood hours when biting each other / with words we’ve stopped / just short of bone." This admission reframes the speaker’s earlier reflections—his longing for clearer communication, his desire to reach out to others—is rooted in the knowledge of his own struggles. The "blood hours" suggest intense, possibly violent arguments, where words are weaponized but never quite inflict irreparable damage. The phrase "stopped just short of bone" implies that while harm has been done, something has always pulled them back from the brink. And yet, these battles have played out "with windows closed," suggesting a conscious effort to keep them hidden from the outside world.

This secrecy is key: "because someone / like us might be listening, / elbows on sills, faces / just beyond the reach of the moon." The speaker acknowledges that he, too, has been a quiet observer, just as he imagines others listening in on his home. The moon—a distant, unreachable witness—suggests that these struggles exist in the dark, beyond full illumination. There is a universality here—everyone listens, everyone hides, everyone exists in some degree of secrecy.

The poem’s closing lines present a devastating contrast between public politeness and private shame: "As last night, when he threw / the punch of slut, we pushed closer / and today just waved / across the lawn at their shame / as they stood on opposite sides / of their car, while trying to be / anywhere but inside their faces." The phrase "the punch of slut" is chilling—an argument overheard, an insult hurled, a moment of raw hurt breaking through the quiet. And yet, in daylight, all that remains is "just waved across the lawn," the forced civility of neighbors who know too much about each other.

The final image—two people standing apart, "trying to be / anywhere but inside their faces"—captures the heart of the poem’s exploration of human distance. There is no real resolution, no neat reconciliation. Instead, there is avoidance, an effort to escape from the truth of one’s own emotions. The phrase "inside their faces" suggests that what they have witnessed, what they have experienced, is unbearable to confront.

Hicok’s "Into the Breach" is an elegy for the moments of connection that never quite happen. It is about the fragile space between people—the ways we both long for and resist intimacy, the ways we listen and hide, the ways we hurt and wave across the lawn as if nothing happened. The poem acknowledges the violence of words, the weight of silence, and the impossibility of perfect understanding. And yet, it does not resign itself to despair. Instead, it lingers in that space of longing, in the hope that maybe, one day, we will learn to reach across the distance in a way that does not break.

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