FICTION, POETRY, AND DRAMA
John Ashbery
NOTHING TO STEAL
What's growing? Will it start
In the next few minutes, leaving us
Far from each other? I think he said
The sun is going down in Florida, but the proverb
Tells us there is no night in light,
No respite, no ticking in the separate seconds .
The prospect is such verbiage, a winter
Landscape, dense, tangled .
A loner spied it in his vocabulary
And, about to shy, made the rest
Into man instead . Dread is the pillow
Of those who flee, making more in the morning.
By midafternoon the machine
Has gasped its last. There are no things to be,
Only a detective. A light dusting of snow
Was all he was appalled to find . On the tree
A mile away some dim, swollen, waxen fruit. He couldn't
Go on
Enumerating. They came for the sale,
Students weighing protests, a light on
In the garage. Those in the superette
Shirked their idea more hazily. The sun
Had now returned to the kitchenette.
Bite harder, the old man tells them, the next time
The rabbit wars loom and you got all scratched
In the basin. Next time. And wear wool
Headgear 'cause the car's scrapped, the children
Came out to see what was wrong and we all turned
In that direction, only to have it disappear.
There are parking lights shining and who knows
How much of it they take in let alone
Understand though the stairs are nice
