A History of Origami

by Bob Hicok October 19, 2009

two women in three days

cried on the green bench in the park

where i found a dollar

folded into a boat.

i thought it was the crying bench and cried

on the crying bench

when it became available.

i cried

by thinking of all the people

who’ve never broken a shop window, not the baker’s

window, the bead-seller’s,

who sells beads for purposes

i find hard to list: necklaces,

the hanging of strings of beads

in doorways, the owning of beads

just in case.

breaking a shop window with a piece of shale

the size of my heart, a piece of shale

on which i’ve drawn my heart, not my actual heart

but my feelings of my heart,

since i’ve never seen my heart,

would set something free.

i don’t know what that something is

but it would be free.

and my heart would have survived its travels

through glass, its jagged voyage

through my reflection.

you see now why i cried: none of this is real.

until i can answer yes to the cop who asks, is this your heart

among the ruins of your reflection?

i won’t be a man, despite what my anatomy

insists.

it insists

that i overcome a sense of resistance when i move,

that i move

as long as i am able to move, and when i am unable

to move, that i stop.

it would be free and look like a bird, an actual bird

or a dollar folded into a bird, a dollar bird

in a dollar boat.

which is to say

i believe origami arrives

when we need it most.

i can’t prove this but i can’t prove

you’re a good person though i suspect

you’re a good person.

you who opened the door.

you who tipped your hat.

you who ran into the fire and carried

the fire safely out.