Proxy

(A true account of my father talking to Frank O'Hara in lower Manhattan)

1.

Is the cotton dirty?
no that's old glitter it's supposed to be snow
it's 90 degrees it’s unseasonable but the Ball Square CVS
has snow behind glass
Up and down Kidder Avenue spears of forsythia
wave yellow the pollen coats my car lilacs
on all the lawns Walt Whitman's dead nose sniffing
his dead mouth declaiming spring
and loud red trucks have arrived with firemen
sweating under their heavy gear and hard red hats
ready for Whitman to love them
Allen Ginsberg says he's had one of your paramours
Walt Whitman but who slept with Vincent Warren
and gave Frank O'Hara the syphilis
come on New York fess up! even if
we're not avante garde we can handle sensitive stuff give us dirt glitter

2.

On Essex and Hester at the stall below Grace Hartigan's window
the two men wait for pickles it’s November 1951 the sky
clear the brine cold my father on his way to the in laws
O'Hara en route to play "stepmother" to Stephen and Joseph Rivers
My father is not shy: "hey!
Matisse retrospective The Museum
I saw you talking to your friend about the paintings
she's a painter right?"

            "Right and you’re a husband
you’re writing a novel you’re not secretive enough
to finish stick to politics
and yeah I know all about painting
what do you know about pickles . . ."
"Half sours are best also get the pickled tomatoes . . ."
my father unprovoked but the woman ahead of them
says "that alludes to the misnomer that you can judge character . . ."
O'Hara says "lady you wouldn't know an allusion if it mugged you
everyone orders the same stuff in this mishmosh of a line
but Gus the pickleman knows our mind the supermarket
has shelves loaded with pickles aisles full of husbands there’s lots
to buy you don’t express your will to anyone
but the shopping cart each line orderly and the same I'm sticking
to the pickle line where I can say a few things
like I mean them to Gus"