Girls on the Run

by John Ashbery

  abashed, a dapper salesman today. And the volley of the shooting gallery

  vies with the welter of jarred complacencies, multiple over time,

  if time wishes: “Lacrimoso, our sport is behind us!

  Lacrimoso, we can’t get anything done!

  Lacrimoso, the bear has gone after the honey!

  Lacrimoso, the honey drips incessantly

  from the bough of a tree.”

  Worse, it was traditional to feel this way.

  V

  Just as a good pianist will adjust the piano stool

  before his recital, by turning the knobs on either side of it

  until he feels he is at a proper distance from the keyboard,

  so did our friends plan their day. Sometimes, after a leisurely breakfast,

  they would get to work immediately, cutting, gluing, stitching

  as the model came entrancingly into view. Other days it was more of a pain,

  or more elaborate. Persnickety Peggy was frequently at the heart of things,

  her strength often an inspiration to the others, though offset by her tendency to brawl

  and generally make a nuisance of herself. The other girls took this in stride,

  though. Little by little the house was rising

  where only sky had hung before, and it seemed like good news,

  a good berth. That was before Tommy took over

  and ruined everything. But I am getting ahead of my story.

  Sometimes to wake up in the morning was enough. They began feeling better.

  Lecture plans were discussed, and a gleaming white envelope, shocking in its purity

  as the dawn, would be sealed by two or three of them. There,

  that’s better, no one would say, and that’s how they got down to business.

  On rainy days they would stay indoors

  watching the chase of drops on the pane, realizing, a little half-frugally,

  how it would be impossible to ever go outside. Moss drips on moss;

  the more interesting-smelling exhibits have been packed away.

  Or was there a terminus, sadly, deep underground? This, only children can know,

  and some adults who have turned the steep corner into childhood.

  Plums are ripening,

  the pitcher of sangria darkens and deepens. So it was ever this way,

  until it was past time to become “normal” again. Tell it to the neutered pets

  that day! Already the verandas are awash with trouble, and color, the darts seldom miss their mark.

  Heidi and Peter dissolve in the crystal furnace;

  something says it’s too late to change, now better to let it come toward

  us, then we will see what it is made of.

  To have had a son back there …

  But the unthinkable is common knowledge now. We must let down a ladder

  so the others may attach their boats to it, and in that way we shall be saved.

  Only I think we’re … It’s all coming nearer.

  VI

  Nov. 7. returned again to the exhibition. How strange it is that when we

  least imagine we are enjoying themselves, a shaft of reason will bedazzle

  us. Then it’s up to us, or at any rate them, to think ourselves out of the

  muddle and in so doing turn up whole again on the shore, impeached by a

  sigh, so that the whole balcony of spectators goes whizzing past, out of

  control, on a collision course with destiny and the bridesmaids’ sobbing.

  Of course, we listened, then whistled, and nobody answered, at least it

  seemed nobody did. The silence was so intense there might have been a

  sound moving around in it, but we knew nothing of that. Then we came

  to. The pictures are so nice on the walls, it seems one might destroy

  something by even looking at them; the tendency is to ignore by walking

  around the partition into a small, cramped space that is flooded with

  daylight. And what if we asked for another spoonful? Look, it’s down

  there, down at the bottom of the well, and we are no wiser for it, if

  anybody asked. Which they don’t. By common consent,

  including ours, we are ignored and given the cold shoulder to. OK, so it’s

  all until another day, and we can see quite clearly into the needle whose thread is

  waving slowly back and forth like a caterpillar, accomplishing its end.

  So may it be until the end that is eternity.

  VII

  The thread ended up on the floor,

  where threads go.

  It became a permanent thing, like silver—

  every time you polish it, a little goes away.

  Then the ducks arrived, it was raining.

  Such a lot of going around and doing!

  Sometimes they were in sordid sexual situations;

  at others, a smidgen of fun would intrude on our day

  which exists to be intruded on, anyway.

  Its value, to us, is incommensurate

  with, let’s say, the concept of duration, which kills,

  surely as a serpent hiding behind a stump.

  Our phrase books began to feel useless—for once

  you have learned a language, what is there to do but forget it?

  An illustration changes us.

  These were cloistered. They stayed

  with us that winter, then went on awhile.

  Soon they were back. It was partially time to go out in the opening.

  Some enjoyed it.

  Then, if they were true,

  the blue rabbit heaped bones upon them. There was no going back,

  now, though, some did go back. Those who did

  didn’t get very far. The others came out a little ahead,

  I think … I’m not sure.

  Look, this is what I am, what I’m made of.

  Am I then to usurp the rose

  that blows on time’s pediment, wrapping all wisps in a kind of bundle

  of awe? But the sundial smiled in the rain, the stile

  beckoned, the sign said it was three miles. In the lane the parson’s

  ambulance pestered gold pigtails, who were in for a shock

  when the fox returned smiling, fanning his great tail in the comet

  of the lighthouses the sausages were so concerned about.

  Did the game of stealing please any? Here, on the other side, they were in sync,

  their bowls of muesli crooning to the sidelong bats of evening, and then they were let out

  to smoke a cigarette in the meadow. No one knew how many

  tried to escape, or how many were successful. You had to read it

  in the evening’s news, and by then sea-cows were weary.

  They taxed themselves out of existence. Our raft capsized

  and they opined the day was bright with promise, though shut off

  from what really happened. It was time for golf.

  This was that day’s learning.

  Finally when Angela could retrieve her moorings they sent the tide out,

  but it came back next day, increasingly bizarre.

  Bunny and Philip weren’t sure they wanted to see more. “But you must,”

  Angela urged, breathing a little faster. Then they all wanted to know why it goes on

  all the time, and the preacher answered it was due to bats. In the silos. Oh,

  I thought you wanted to know, Philip said. We do, but other than you there are two

  pails formally, and no one can figure out what is inside. Indeed? Well I’ll

  take the plunge, Philip volunteered. He was always a brave little kid.

  Now it was this side of sunset again. Nobody knew which was in error: the stove, or its corset.

  After which the elm buds chanced a summer intrusion

  and all the nifty year was almost gone. Well isn’t that a catastrophe, Aunt
Clara gurgled,

  or are some of you please going to take it outside? Aw, but it’s raining, someone grumbled,

  why can’t we stay inside and have school?

  Yes but the quitter must go far out into the bogs. It’s time for the badgers to nest

  and who is that coming over the hill this time? It’s

  Spider, Angela suggested.

  But as for leaving you all without a tale to tell, I would be daft,

  nay derelict, not to insist on where the others have gone. Isn’t there a place

  to stop, that we’ll all know about when we come to it?

  Yes there is, she said, we’ll just all have to back down

  into the gloom, and bait our hooks with peanut butter.

  Which is what they did

  and so they left home that day.

  VIII

  “All aboard! If there’s one thing I hate it’s a loner,”

  Uncle Philip said, or someone who’s beside himself. Please, Uncle,

  can’t we go out today? Aw, shut up, Philip said. Now there were two bald uncles

  who lived in the nearby swamp. One of them knew Shuffle. And he said:

  If it’s to play in, why not. But if it’s just to play over and around

  then I don’t see why you need to, and indeed shall expend every effort

  to see that you don’t. But if the mirror

  refract any of this, then boy you can be sure you can go.

  And in a little while the mirror reflected all of them

  back at each other. This was exceptional. Those getting up to leave were stayed

  in their rubber boots, and those arriving were perplexed and pleasured. Why, isn’t

  it a rebus, Aunt Clara wondered, and Tootles agreed that it was.

  From a distant patch of loam the speck started arriving, bigger

  with each hulking gasp. Why doesn’t the foreman go, someone wondered, it’s

  part of his job description, and the others can go anyway, if they want to. So all

  got to be sensitized. And in the large gap for brooding that was created

  some of the saner heads got wind of the passing football

  and were mortified into a decision. Sun shovel it in,

  there’s no more room for today, and you can go. I said you can go.

  Oh, the man said, not understanding, and a third time they shouted at him:

  You can go.

  And he betook himself on his two legs.

  Under frozen mounds of yak butter the graffiti have their day, and are elaborate,

  some say. Nobody wants to go there. Yes, she said, we will swim

  there if necessary. The arroz con pollo can take us

  and do with us what we will. Just as I thought I had found a solution

  to this and other present error, the knitting needles collapsed.

  Never bathe or shave on a cloudy day, Uncle Margaret cautioned. The twins were in limbo

  over this but we steered the car carefully, permanently

  toward them and they too were saved. Hey,

  we put it all aside for a rainy day, and this is one, and this is just superior,

  Dave asserted. And all we’ve got to do is roll over

  and the dream will be over. Not so fast, Aunt Clara indicated, the gum

  trees are a-rattle. The stealth of the horizon

  nears us. That cat is asleep. And who shall take the dinner pail out

  to the sodden farmhands, and just leave? Be it us,

  that will be all OK. And in two strokes it was done. And they came and cancelled

  the signature, so that everything was as it had been before. The militia capsized

  and died from eating a certain kind of mold. Now the sentry wanes,

  sinks and dies of its own weight. All the marbles have rolled inside the house.

  IX

  And now everyone must sleep.

  The kiddies are silent for a while.

  and yes, singly or in pairs,

  they come down to the water’s edge, to drink their fill. The wide-eyed pansies gaze

  immutably. Rev up the old flivver, we’ll be disparate for a time

  and then we’ll see, the mice will see. Why all the fuss?

  You know you came here just for this, this kiss, on the face, the dog said.

  Where are you starting to go? Are my pants too wide?

  What if someone else on the other side of the globe

  told you this, would he fall off? Would I?

  That’s why they say stand clear.

  You can never do yourself favors enough, in the rosebush

  from which man never extricates himself. I see,

  someone said. Does it matter about being alone? No it’s important

  but not that important. I see, this person said. But then what if I am

  no longer alone? What then? Two of you can board as long as one stays on the lookout,

  the relaxed policeman said. He brought a sandwich down the street

  and placed it on the curb, he was so nice. We didn’t expect the birches

  to explode just then. The sound traveled over the neighboring hills

  down to the makeshift waterfront, lugubrious in the darkening air.

  It’s the cold

  again he said. Every time I forget something, whenever anything is in motion

  again, this happens, and I am not prepared for it. I’m plum scared.

  Then you should go out,

  your dress will be as morning to the cows,

  she said. And he did and it was.

  By and by Allen told us of a scheme

  to rescue Pliable, if the latter consented, which surely he would,

  and it would all seem as if it had never been.

  But it would have, we’d know that, and ever after, as adults,

  wandering the velveteen streets, we’d come upon someone who would have known someone

  who wasn’t all there and we’d be back at square one in the love market

  and oceans of tremors would have been discovered. A word

  would issue from a crack in the pavement, and it was up to Jane and the detective to decide

  whether they’d heard it. If they hadn’t, fine.

  Otherwise it’s down to the station

  to sort everything out in the middle of the night, and not taken to too kindly

  either. Drunks passed back and forth. Jane

  was titillated but squeamish. She thought of asking Cupid

  if the seams of her stockings were straight, but Pliable intervened strenuously,

  arguing that no two people can take love into their own hands.

  Oh. Excuse me. Bye bye. I’m

  outta here. No, said Jane, you don’t

  understand, he means to be nice. He’s a sheep, really. Yes but I don’t see

  how that affects me, and anyway I’m not interested. Oh, please, you must be,

  she agitated, just for a little while as we perch

  on this twig that must be the end of the world for us. Jolly good,

  Pliable thought, it’s me or you, now or never and here comes—

  I awoke from the dream. A big boom

  was passing over my head. I could see clear up the mizzen, if that counts,

  any more, your honor, I just want to say I respects

  all what is good, and don’t come here any more, I won’t. That is good.

  We’ll take off and be back pronto. Don’t

  answer the telephone until dawn. Supposing they come and

  want to ask you and we are gone, or in the middle of something? That’s OK but don’t

  be gone too long. We’ll come too.

  I’m no expert but I see a problem here.

  The fisheries have come undone, as the headlong race to the pole

  has made alarmingly evident. As I say, I can speak only for myself,

  but as soon as I got here the rules became different.

  They didn’t
apply to me any more, or to anyone else except a distant runt,

  almost invisible in its litter. So how was

  I to know who to stand up to, when to turn abrasive, when all things nestled,

  equidistant, all hearts were charming, and it was good to be natural and sincere?

  True, we had much to worry about,

  other things to think about, but when has mankind had the leisure

  to distract himself from these and other unassailable syllogisms?

  So the truth just washed up on the shore,

  a bundle of nerves, not resembling much of anything

  we cared to remember. Was polite, stoical,

  and anything else to deflect attention from its seething ambiguity.

  It was time to come back, back into the flower-bedecked house.

  A stunning moment of certainty survived

  briefly, then it too was washed away in the rising flood,

  tortured, unambitious.

  School was over,

  not just for that day but forever and for seasons to come.

  The reason was that the truth was just average

  on the iniquity scale, and nobody wanted to get involved.

  X

  Often a strange desire:

  we hear you

  you hear me

  we can hear you

  you make my period rounder.

  You are the center of the universe

  a tuber time invents.

  We were all passing the fumes

  of the car,

  green sky explains

  more tomorrow

  under whatever sun they send up

  to be worshipped,

  imbibed,

  glee from head to toe.

  It will not do

  and it’s true I do

  we had to have summer.

  We were too baked.

  Some of us got up to go,

  the others stayed behind

  in what position one wants to know.

  Larry Sue said bye bye.

  The sets of vigorous twins left by the walkway.

  This is a nice place we’re in.

  Then it all comes to nothing walking

  have you a care where we’re walking.

  Often a strange desire

  mingles cats and near-greatness

  that you all left startled standing. There are no more heaters understandably.

  A pipe is needed, pleasant moments.

  Heaven knows the place of our desires—

  it is here somewhere, over there