John Ashbery: “The Skaters”

7

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	But the year XXXXX livery of the year, {the} changing air
	Brings each to his turn end. Leaving phrases unfinished
	Gestures half-sketched against woodsmoke. The abundant sap
	Oozes in girls' throats, the sticky words, half-uttered, unwished for,
	A blanket disbelief, quickly supplanted by idle questions that fade in turn.
# ?
	Slowly the mood turns to look at itself as some urchin
	Forgotten by a road-bed. the roadside. New schemes are gotten up, new taxes,
	Earthworks. And the hour becomes light again.
	Girls wake up in it.
	For these reasons
	For these reasons It is best to remain indoors. B, because there is error
	In so much precision. As flames are fanned, wishful thinking arises
	Bearing its own prophets, its pointed refusals ignoring. And just as a desire
	Settles down at the end of a long spring day, over heather and watered shoot and dried rush field
	So {fatal} error is plaited into thoughtXXXXXXX desires not yet born.
	Therefore the post must be resumed (is being falsified
	To be forever involved, tragically, with one's own image?)
	The cooler studio light suddenly invaded by theXXX a long casement--values were the one
	She knows now. But the floor is pulled a part byXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX being gradually pulled apart
	Like elastic under those limpid feet.                   slowly
	straw

{	The most you can say is that she does return.}
{	And that the added time for thoughtsXXXXXXXX long thoughts,"a bed of nails," could not, in any case, have been avoided.}
{	The skaters waltz. She had been asked not to participate that day}