John Ashbery
8. LIGHT ARTICULATION OF THE LEFT HAND
He could understand the things at home.
—Wallace Stevens, “Things of August”
Scribbled on the expansive mist, the desire
of many dwindles to us
and our “activities,” wholesome
or otherwise. Soon it becomes apparent
that neither they nor I have any prise
on the fabliau’s demands of unity.
We are aching neither here nor there.
The tent caterpillars shrug off the tent, and proceed.
Was there a maxillary half-buried in the silt?If so, what were we doing in earth-heaven?Times came to be, trembledon the tilt of a sword’s point and slid offinto the grass.It’s not like stuff you send away forand it comes and you can’t rememberwhy you ordered it. These, our time, were like grain,necessary and inedible. In time the minute palace got chucked.
