> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://hyperallergic.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# "Blue Safari" by Josh Bell
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/blue-safari-by-josh-bell/
- Published: 2013-04-19T14:30:52.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:35:27.000Z
- Description: Our poetry editor, Joe Pan, has selected a poem by Josh Bell for his seventh in a monthly series that brings original poetry to the screens of Hyperallergic readers.
- Author: Josh Bell
- Tags: Poetry, Hyperallergic Poetry, Joe Pan, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 06:51 (2012, 2013, part 1)

*Our poetry editor,* [*Joe Pan*](http://joepan.org/?ref=hyperallergic.com)*, has selected a poem by Josh Bell for his seventh in a* [*monthly series*](http://hyperallergic.com/tag/hyperallergic-poetry/) *that brings original poetry to the screens of Hyperallergic readers.*

\* \* \*

![dsfds](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2013/04/safari-inn-640.jpg)

Sign for the Safari Inn in Burbank, California. (via Wikipedia)

Or bring along an extra shovel  
for me, a map of the area, some new  
interferences, we may  
need to plant something. Normally I’d leave  
the important digging to you  
because I am afraid of tools and how my fingers fall  
to rest so easily on handles, of the earth  
when it’s been opened, and furthermore  
I’m afraid to close it  
when I’m done with it,  
there are baby teeth down there, beetles  
in the hollow of a doll’s head. Though let me say  
I am hardly ever done with it,  
Earth, or whatever it was  
the first ones called it, even when it’s signaling  
that it’s done with me. The timeline unwinds,  
weeds firing up from the window box  
like rockets, the rowboat sun  
somewhat closer than recorded. Additionally  
we may need to capture something  
in advance of burying it: a wild animal,  
a wild animal, I am almost certain  
we have been commissioned to capture  
a wild animal, ears like radar dishes  
turning always toward the racket  
we are making, despite how quiet we must be  
stacking tools and tent-poles  
in the bed of my pickup truck. Or at least  
that’s how I’ve drawn it  
here in my sketchbook. Or first it was  
the tools, and then it was our hands  
were built for them, and they were built  
with other tools entirely, over whose wooden bodies  
and crooked metal heads  
they never let us speak of the weather  
or of the day our bodies will disappear, taking all their secrets  
and favorite paintings along with them  
toward the sun. Long and thin, your hands  
are for the removing of beetles  
from a doll’s head, which is why  
I am so happy you are here with me  
even though you’re far away,  
it’s just your voice on the cell phone  
which confuses me. And as if I thought of it myself  
I say this thing about your hands  
but I had to read the story of them  
on them, while you were walking down the street  
and of their own accord  
they spun your hair in pigtails. I always loved  
that painting. You always got  
a signal, even in the jungle. Also the photo of you  
held here by static to the center of  
my television screen, so that your face plays over  
the roles which flicker there  
behind it. On one channel, you take the stage  
at the Apollo. On another, you’re crying  
because your husband’s in a coma.  
I’d like for you to take him  
off the respirator—it’s  
the kindest thing to do—then bring yourself  
and the respirator over here  
to my house, we’ll take it on  
safari, don’t forget to pack the respirator, or maybe on  
a picnic, don’t forget to pack  
the blowgun and the radio, the one that plays  
the song forever, the one  
with the list of rejected names  
for the planet Earth, the one with the darts made up  
of Detroit steel, the one with the giant voice  
and the pretty wraith inside, exactly  
how many blowguns  
do you have in there? Many radio signals  
go all the way, clear into the root system  
and the water table, where they pick up other trees  
or re-emerge as these giant flowers  
we are busy hacking a path through  
on the way to our room  
at the Safari Diner Motel Inn. I love that picture of us  
they hung above the coffee maker:  
forty is the new death  
and we’ve been up all night dealing  
with all the wrong satellites.