Snow Fence

John Ashbery

Dieting aids posture,
as reading helps thought.
They may be forced
into another shape, and the world
around us becomes black
with notions of the ground.

A snow fence imposes that sleep.
All along it snow has chosen different shapes
of busyness. It has been prevented
from staying where it wanted to.
Blue sky will pay for this
music from an old Victrola
singing about a lover and his henchman
and the woman hiding in a barrel
under the bridge.

In the west it all turns to meat.
A few are grateful, more are bored.
We could have lunch by that lake,
drink beer from a nearby farm.
And the actors walked with me
to those calms.