Chateau Hardware
from The Double Dream of Spring (1970)
It was always November there. The farms Were a kind of precinct; a certain control Had been exercised. The little birds Used to collect along the fence. It was the great “as though,” the how the day went, The excursions of the police As I pursued my bodily functions, wanting Neither fire nor water, Vibrating to the distant pinch And turning out the way I am, turning out to greet you.
Copyright © 1970 by John Ashbery. Used by arrangement with Georges Borchardt, Inc. for the author.