Apr 04, 2006 06:13
But what about me, I
Wondered as the parachute released
Its carrousel into the sky over me?
I never think about it
Unless I think about it all the time
And therefore don't know except in dreams
How I behave, what I mean to myself.
Should I wonder more
How I'm doing, inquire more after you
With the face like a birthday present
I am unwrapping as the parachute wanders
Through us, across blue ridges brown with autumn leaves?
People are funny -- they see it
And then it's that that they want.
No wonder we look out from ourselves
To the other person going on.
What about my end of the stick?
I keep thinking if I could get through you
I'd get back to me at a further stage
Of this journey, but the tent flaps fall,
The parachute won't land, only drift sideways.
The carnival never ends; the apples,
The land, are duly tucked away
And we are left with only sensations of ourselves
And the dry otherness, like a clenched fist
Around the throttle as we go down, sideways and down.
-- John Ashbery