"Dear John Ashbery" [by Nicole Santalucia]

Dear John Ashbery

It doesn’t seem to matter if we are a hundred pages ahead or two hundred behind. Everything compared to a sack of melons is sour, which has something to do with aging. But it’s different for dinosaurs. In the manner of a T-Rex with big boobs and popcorn textured ceilings and early retirement… Maybe it’s a hoax. When breasts are blurry it basically means that women are not allowed to see. Thank god birds and humans sleep at the same time or we’d always be awake and hungry. I am not a forger, but I am in denial about my mouth. Everything that grows in the garden and the birds and jangles that fall out of mannerist paintings and poetry biz; I’d rather have a slow mouth with room for all this stuff than a mouth that runs. The same goes for social commentary and those imitations of football and beer. They are positioned near the center like the sun and in the end they are found in books. Bones made of zeros don’t rise to the surface. It all translates to something thinner than air. But in this translation the rocks have a future full of garbage and our necks grow an inch each year. How else are women going to reach the fruit when their fists stand in for stars and moons on nights like this? I’m almost certain that you know what it means to have a steady stream of light. You’ve anticipated future positions that used to be various shades of pink, but now there are fewer sources of light and everyone is shaped like smoke. You got me if I can tell which is which. It could be a nude woman painting another nude woman or an assemblage of fruit and visual trickery.

Ed. note: Click here for the Diode page where you will find this and a second in a series of "Dear John Ashbery" poems written collaboratively by Nicole Santalucia and Dante Di Stefano.

Comments

[Veronica Lodge]

Brilliant!

[Jill Newnham]

The final sentence is radically erotic.

[Emma james]

Awesome news in the sense that no news is good news and no noose. Thanks for sharing and helping us cope with life beyond Ashbery.

[Jack William]

"Thanks for sharing," I mean sincerely, and not just as if I were in an Ashbery twelve step program.

[Lightskin Dog]

Fantastic news in the sense that there is no noose and no bad news. We appreciate you sharing and supporting us as we adjust to life after Ashbery.