The Poet Who Wrote Adam Snow

for John Ashbery

 

The literary life is never easy, you saw it first

in the convex mirror, its spreading tension

the surface of claw-prints in silver. I then tried

to learn how to read humour and surprise

disguised as a shadow pretending to have

never seen alchemy winnow through thistles

down the dark alleys of your city parks. I,

the wanderer learning how to drift past

shoe factories and never pay attention

to the still-chiming ways of looking

at a lamppost, would like to say, You are

the art of consciousness, the consciousness

of art! Uniform of the swirling things,

you are: desk, papers, dried leaves, money

bills, memos, pills, tears, the image. All

surround me like a magma of memories

shutting down the last sex of wine from ash.