Escada

"is even more fun
than going to San Sebastian, Irún,
Hendaye,
Biarritz, Bayonne,
Or being sick to my stomach
On the Travesera de Gracia
in Barcelona.

Partly because in your orange shirt
You look like a better happier
St. Sebastian.

partly because of my love for you,
partly because of your love for yogurt,
partly because of the fluorescent
orange tulips around the birches.

partly because of the secrecy
our smiles
take on before people and statuary.

it is hard to believe
when I'm with you
that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive
as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o'clock light

we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree
breathing through its spectacles.

and the portrait show
seems to have no faces in it at all,
just paint.
you suddenly wonder
why in the world anyone ever did them.

I look at you
and I would rather look at you
than all the portraits in the world.

except possibly for the Polish Rider
occasionally and anyway
it's in the Frick.

which thank heavens you haven't gone to yet
so we can go together for the first time.

and the fact that you move
so beautifully more or less
takes care of Futurism.

just as at home
I never think of the
Nude Descending a Staircase.

or at a rehearsal
a single drawing of Leonardo
or Michelangelo that used to wow me.

and what good does
all the research of the Impressionists do them
when they never got the right person
to stand near the tree when the sun sank.

or for that matter
Marino Marini
when he didn't pick the rider
as carefully as the horse.

it seems they were all cheated of some marvelous experience
which is not going to go
wasted on me which is why
I'm telling you about it"