“Baltimore”
Two were alive. One came round the corner
clipclopping. Three were the saddest snow ever seen in Prairie City.
Take this, metamorphosis. And this. And this. And this.
If I’d needed your company,
I’d have curled up long before in the clock of the weeds,
with only a skywriter to read by.
I’d have laved the preface
to the World’s Collected Anthologies,
licked the henbane-flavored lozenge
and more. I’m presuming,
I know. And there are wide floodplains spotted with children,
investing everything in everything.
And I’m too shy to throw away.
–John Ashbery, from Notes from the Air
(Riffing on Countee Cullen? Who knows.)
Wet Casements 