Girls on the Run

by John Ashbery

  so long as we are in unreasoning variation to one another,

  which might be repaired by dawn’s unsealing the tips

  of tall buildings, so they sway to and fro,

  in time with the maker’s rhythm. He had a plan

  but it was too late to use it.

  XIV

  Heightened with a sense of mysterious confusion, or completion,

  the books in the library give off an odor of display, are about allegorical whale-catching,

  or about the roads each of us takes, that cross over each other

  from here until the end, whichever arrives first.

  Yes, Shuffle, he and I many times asked ourselves that,

  breaking the theme up

  into slivers

  that the king melds together, driving in his carriage out of the straight gate

  into the taxis of City Hall. Best not to let them guess

  what is in your hand. Varmints tell the truth

  you may want to sip in later days, which is part of the story, an important one,

  as is listening to the telegraph

  wires, and how we can never listen to nor quite escape the sound

  that brings us

  to this place of feasting. Again, you’ve

  got to be something without grapes,

  and no one knows where it can lead to.

  The truant officer plays with a doily,

  outside, in the street. Playground noise smears the crowd,

  bewitches those who had brought along questions, placating questions of faith,

  so that when it’s all gone a lorn dog’s skin

  comes quickly up the path, loping into the light of what was done.

  My dears, doesn’t it all seem a little suspicious to you that we are here,

  unable to throw the volleyball into the adjoining courtyard?

  Fred the truant officer smiled and turned sheepishly.

  It made less difference now,

  its fluency was less tortured. So he spoke, and drifted away

  out of the girls’ thoughts, all but a few of them.

  Trevor his dog came, half jumping.

  The oblique flute sounded its note of resin.

  In time, he said, we all go under the fluted covers

  of this great world, with its spiral dissonances,

  and then we can see, on the other side,

  what rascals are up to. What games the malevolent play.

  Only then we are distanced, and can relax in the great

  cradle of earth’s two cents, for what it’s worth,

  and can recline, looking upward to the great here and there,

  even as it falls short at our feet.

  I’ll go you one better, Fred chimed in, here’s a diver,

  let’s call her Josephine, who dives and dives, further and downward,

  all our lives’ span, to the basis of that bridge.

  Does that make her any more coquettish than we are? More sure-footed?

  No but and here’s what I was going to say

  all along, must we recast ourselves in the image of the ocean floor:

  To wit, are we not shipshape entities? Have we not corollas?

  O the moon shines bright on the birdbath

  as on a summer’s stream, and we pass slowly from view,

  borne by the tide’s single-mindedness, and come to seem happy

  as birds frolic, words wuther, and the contented are at peace again.

  Whoa, Trevor responded, these dances of life—

  always pissing, and shitting, and waking up in the great grapefruit

  as in a trundle bed, breathless following how it goes, leads

  to the great here and there.

  Let’s take my toes, if you insist. What I said

  no one now remembers. Oh, but I do, Josephine said brightly.

  We were talking about thingamabobs, and how one sheep’s antler

  can subdue dispassionate multitudes with its glint.

  But is that all that brought us together? What about sex?

  Yes, he remembers quietly, we too were part of the line.

  Then why have sidled against this puzzle-wall for miles and miles?

  Do you think it can speak to us?

  Or are we, as was said of the others, just slush?

  Hold it, I have an idea, Fred groaned. Now some of you, five at least, must go over in that little shack.

  I’ll follow with the tidal waves, and we’ll see what happens next.

  It was agreed for that day they would separate into two groups,

  the lovers and learners side by side with the vexed and disinherited.

  If only his plan had worked better—

  but we must learn to read, “and that ain’t easy,” Trevor summarized.

  Oh for a pen, for a blotter,

  for a more regulated environment. Tired, the girls lay down to sleep amid the rocks.

  It was just play, they dreamed,

  tomorrow will be another day, and different.

  For after taking off from the spring, the squirrels

  touch earth again and die. Much that is lovely

  may be voiced then, though not exclusively. The mad neighbor

  pursues a fish; desperate, islands collapse,

  and it’s all vertigo now on the railroad. Yes, chained

  to a post, I might have agreed with that. But now, the bees

  come. See how fast they come,

  suspecting the glad harbor holds opals for them.

  But the wish for truth is denied. A twinkly Christmas tree

  rushes over the sand, and whether the scale is practiced for the benefit of many,

  or whether it voices a portent of shooting stars to come

  is not known. I’ll write you from that solemn coast,

  but you must promise never to remember me, never speak of me,

  until we are found at last behind the bathroom door, with the broom.

  XV

  Fred began to get chills: It sure was his mission, he averred,

  to get everyone out before the avalanche came down.

  But it was equally certain the girls’ light chatter had dispersed

  the whaling ships to wherever. In tints of prune, or lilac, these arrived

  to chase the gloom of our arrival. Now, some of them were still in short pants.

  But all that mattered was that they take off their clothes

  in innocence, miming sleep, and be none too particular.

  “The chime irritates me, I’ll lose the thread

  if I follow it much further,” Trevor whispered. And where

  should we go for relief, we who have never had any, have never felt

  what it means to go without pangs, unless momentarily forgotten,

  by the bridge, in sunlight’s vale? It’s because there are pairs of everything, that we miss the

  chink in the stair where memory was supposed to reside. Indeed,

  she was there until recently, until this morning; no one could say

  why she went away.

  The consignment of leeches hadn’t arrived yet.

  I was whispering, where were you?

  I know, I was close by, but dared not speak. Try surrendering,

  but not often. A loved one may be driving home

  into the forest and then this—it’s enough to make you ache

  with hunger at a banquet.

  The men never learned to love much. There was both hunger and sadness

  at their feasting, the rocks wave over the airstrip, the hyenas of sleep redescend,

  the leeches brace themselves for one last fetid leap into thanksgiving

  there where loam signals the synod’s pallid approach. It was a little too unresonant.

  Still, they’d imagined they’d be saved

  all this time, so why take a different tack now?

  So marl oozed through the bookshelves

  and a yellow wind turned the trailer park to
dust.

  Strange glyphs seemed to advise one to consign oneself to temporary oblivion;

  we were very expressive in words, and in feeling. The mastodon broke his chain

  and wanted to be petted, or at least encouraged, and tall lupine

  clambered up the pesky wall, infesting projects with smug I-told-you-so’s

  in case any of us were still rattling around inside the domed hut’s emptiness.

  I like it here, but why should anybody else? It was my spasm that brought this on,

  now I’ll sink or swim in it. The latter, preferably,

  but Damian still reached for Emily’s shoelaces,

  as the lich-gate came unhooked. It was still laughing like a lunatic

  several hours later when reinforcements arrived at the stockade

  just as General Forester’s nerves were giving out, and a thin gruel

  was being served to the men in the guise of supper. “I’ll not swallow this!”

  But you must, otherwise the story would have no turning,

  and blind sockets gaze at streaks the plow left

  in sunburnt earth, for only some are permitted to be happy,

  surmised Emily, and that means none of us

  at the present time. Sure enough, Trevor leaped on the horizon,

  causing cheerfulness to jump-start the stubborn little band of marauders. When they awoke,

  as from a dream, only a mauve magician was occupying the premises,

  and he too pretended not to notice anything was amiss. This was too much for

  Laure. She pushed impatiently past the guards, on the pretext

  of bringing Trevor his bowl and saucer, secretly

  counting up the number of clothespins that still lay scattered around the tent threshold.

  This marks the moment

  when everything must be summed up or there will no longer be a way past the mercenaries.

  You see we all thought the ride would be lovely

  and worth the trip, which it was, but now we cannot go anywhere

  having already been everywhere. No, do you

  understand how realistic it all is? Bear-baiting was considered a privilege

  in those days. Then I have one piece of advice for you: Go easy

  on the imperatives, for night is coming, than which there will be none bigger.

  Sure enough, suds coursed down the boulder’s slate face,

  moonflowers danced, and it was all here and in a jiffy,

  the present, made up like a cadaver, but more tastefully, though not too

  much so. A raft descended the millrace

  and Lou jumped off at the prearranged moment,

  to the astonishment of many, but survived to yodel another day.

  We listened to some semiclassical music, and someone got the idea of hooking up

  the car’s old engine to the plaster sheep on the hill.

  The effect was startling; moths buzzed in the light

  from its extraordinary vibrations. Fifteen years passed in this way.

  When it was over no one had the courage to come out into the daylight,

  or knew there was any. I fell asleep

  on a sandhill, and dreamed this, and gave it to you, and you thanked me, solemnly,

  but we were not permitted to associate, only to correspond, and you came out

  to me again, and we wished one another good afternoon, and then went away

  again into the fog-lit embrasure. Not that we didn’t have good reason

  to do whatever we did, but the question never came up again.

  Where was I? Back in the explorer’s cottage, with the thundering sea

  bathing the rafters, not sure how many of us were to have gone out to meet

  the pack of returning travelers. Some stayed behind. Others felt it a breach of dignity

  to have gone. Still others put a good face on it, and were in turn

  kissed by blue bats, and the coroner caught up on his sleep. “Forty winks!

  That’s all they allowed me!” And grumbling, he too left the shift.

  For wasn’t that what the Creator had in mind? That we should all muck about

  helplessly, for a few minutes, and then stand back

  to look at what a small difference we had made merely by observing crusty silence and then speaking up briefly?

  Sure as canvasbacks are part of nature, we could not have observed it

  another way, or brought our chairs back to where the laundry was spread out, effectively drying.

  XVI

  Dolores … you wisteria …

  Destined to be destined

  Like a lilac I am coming on your shoe.

  Uncle Margaret was dull-witted.

  He had tried the various positions.

  The tame suburban landscape excited him.

  He had met his match.

  Dimples replaced the mollusk with shoe-therapy.

  Sun burning his way through that flower …

  Since Labor Day hardly any curls were outside

  on the ladies’ heads, the ones who sold jelly-bean screwdrivers inside.

  Uncle Margaret’s wren ranch was getting on his nerves just now.

  Why, I’ll wager some of them even wear raccoon coats

  on shopping tours to East Testicle, he thundered. But what does showing off prove,

  except to stop it, right here and now?

  Aw, don’t

  be such a grouch, Dimples curdled, but then suddenly the plain was awash with

  ocher sediment; testaments to the superiority of life overflowed the trap;

  all around us were boondoggles and poverty parades.

  Which is it to be? Shall I spoil you

  a little, or can we just go back to being peacemakers

  in love, and in our time? Broken clocks

  sound the hour in forty different cities at once, and in this, I was right,

  I told you so, Jane’s warlock said. But in other things I am less right,

  like wanting to go in to town the fast way.

  Yes you surely are right:

  Some dream, some faint away, others are dragged up in morning’s consciousness

  like breakers from overseas. The shore patrol, ditchdiggers clawing,

  and the mostly interesting ephemera of dawn, then a big one,

  then a not so big one, then another one, then quite a small one,

  then another big one followed by two middle-sized ones. For whom

  are these? Day struts and stammers

  on our headlands, so it seems, half-threatening to be off into night

  as all collapses, leaving the players in fearful jeopardy,

  but as time goes on they begin to forget their bruises,

  settling down into the seats of the jalopy of day.

  What if someone called back to you

  from a distance? What would that sound like? What would you think? Does anyone

  care any more about it’s being night? “We think

  night is fine, it enables one to get over the headaches of day

  and so survive until day returns,

  a limpet in his arms, one blue eye poking out from the vellum of his matted hair.”

  So what is important,

  if the universe decides not to challenge us, and even breakwaters fall asleep?

  Why, the old, seminal

  undertow, that’s what. The nor’easter will be out in force tomorrow,

  an insane force in an otherwise docile universe.

  Why beat about the bush? One of us knows the truth, and she isn’t telling.

  And so they betook themselves to the Carolinas.

  Now he was the daughter or granddaughter of somebody famous,

  folks for miles around knew that. But no one could say what she was up to,

  she was far too clever for that. “Look, Uncle Wilmer,” she’d say sometimes.

  “The dark forest is my kitty. Just feel how soft it is!”

&nbs
p; Let chunky Ida have that, Uncle thought, but he said nothing.

  The tides were still active, one coming in

  as another was going out, and one’s thinking got caught

  in these shifts, too positive some days, too blank the next,

  and it all did matter somehow, though it didn’t seem to

  compute at any given moment. Pink shrouds fell on the pansy jamboree,

  mocking the circular nature of events with its own kind of back-to-the-beginning

  free fall. A few pansies got drowned. Yet this was as nothing to the terrible

  muttering of the distant cavalry, like an express train coming to exhaust itself on the shore,

  and over and over the same note was struck. Go back! This is a place too far.

  In any case you ought to reconsider the places back there,

  teeming with sandalwood and bees. You think you know it

  but you don’t, there are inner coasts to be discovered, sat on,

  whittled to a point more dangerous than Father Time’s tuning fork,

  if you but knew. In the minute

  before the terrible tide turns there’s time enough to go back

  if you are engaged, shoes slushy with sand.

  Go, do as I say.

  Uncle Bert chided the fens at Mr.

  McPlaster’s side, and they stretched away into the hyacinth distance, meek enough,

  or so it was thought, for the time being. Then everything began to explode

  in a geyser of impatience that crested at where the nearest cloud-scraps had been.

  “Now that’s funny,

  he was here only a moment ago. I thought I saw him go up, and out.” The flies

  on the flypaper said they hadn’t seen him; birds whistled unconsciously

  at a shadow-bulge in the grass that could have been almost anything

  except the two principal survivors, who were nowhere to be found

  on a fine day, with the red mailbox standing near, as always, if you know what I mean.

  This is where we break for lunch.

  Those who want to go back to the base camp can do so. I swear

  I’ve never seen a more ornery bunch, though civic-minded

  at heart, I suppose, but there’s a great gap between their intentions

  and the harvest moon that seems to belie mediocre aspirations

  even as it secretly promotes them, waxes as it wanes

  into delirium tremens, and other missed opportunities

  too numerous to scramble for, in disbelief’s fomented ocean.

  Oh my there were a lot of them

  then, some as had names, and these were brought to the front of the group,