Mottled Tuesday
Something was about to go laughably wrong, whether directly at home or here, on this random shoal pleading with its eyes till it too breaks loose, caught in a hail of references. I’ll add one more scoop to the pile of retail. Hey, you’re doing it, like I didn’t tell you to, my sinking laundry boat, point of departure, my white pomegranate, my swizzle stick. We’re leaving again of our own volition for bogus patterned plains streaked by canals, maybe. Amorous ghosts will pursue us for a time, but sometimes they get, you know, confused and forget to stop when we do, as they continue to populate this fertile land with their own bizarre self-imaginings. Here’s hoping the referral goes tidily, O brother. Chime authoritatively with the pop-ups and extras. Keep your units pliable and folded, the recourse a mere specter, like you have it coming to you, awash with the new day and its abominable antithesis, OK? Don’t be able to make that distinction.
From A Worldly Country by John Ashbery. Copyright © 2007 by John Ashbery. Published by arrangement with Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.