Iphigenia in Sodus
from Quick Question (2012)
Why does that name sound so familiar? If I were you I shouldn’t worry, or ask. But—isn’t that collusion? Well, yes, technically it is, but we’re a long way from truth here. Well, it all seems right, but we’ll have to put different bodies on the gentlemen— Something that speaks to truth, as she is now, which is how we all had envisioned her: wrapped in jade strips, more or less flyblown, somewhat sloppy about the mouth these days. Excuse me, I had issues, but then the doors sagged, the window frames had disappeared a long time ago into the murk of this age. Seen now, she pivots frantically near where we—they—arrive to consult the oracle, making small talk the while, about how whose elections needed shortening, and how all this streamed away into cozier times, in ways kind to me, before chopping them down.
Copyright © 2012 by John Ashbery. Used by arrangement with Georges Borchardt, Inc. for the author.