—after John Ashbery
When the
lift stopped and they sent notice you
stepped over
sleeping vagrants in the stairwell on your way out.
Time held still
in its museum you constructed
from hearsay,
happy voices, no one in control
the beauty
of democracy without the parade of life
you said and
closed Shelley, turned to the tap a shoulder
rolling over
in bed (before the water shortage)
like a lost
Apollo mission.
We joked about who had the gumption
to talk to
her. All the blokes held back, shadows of what we sought.
A fine mess,
indeed. Don’t blame the messenger but do listen long enough
as we touched
down elsewhere again, sons of immigrants
fathering
immigrants, “my generation” a rolling spectacle.
I’d like to
button down too one day, collect trinkets
bearing a conceptual
oblivion that undoes them
like a new
pair of glasses too high or too low.
I’m glad you
are open about drawing lines in the sand
not to
disturb eternity with details of the day
and can
relax that no one will take you seriously.
All that is
left is a restless hope in surviving time
like a lover
so young and innocent who disappears in time.
(Nov. 5, 2014)
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