John Ashbery

At the Station


Renewed by everything, I thought
I was a ghost.  All we've got in the back seat are doors.

I was just thinking
it was time to go back, pick up the pieces,
place them on a stand.  You are nearer
to the high-school orchestra.
Youth plays absorbed.
If it had its own way, we'd be
outside.  The decision is HERE!

Already they're taking it down,
distributing the various parts to places built in the ground
just for them.  Next, we'd be tiptoeing
up and down the station platform.  Look,
I've bought you a box of candied chestnuts, for the great voyage
into the technical dream you will learn to read.
For us, it is enough that the grass grows
sideways into the loam,
and that the wind is curious, silent tonight.




catalog