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Strawberries in Mexico
At 14th Street and First Avenue Is a bank and in the bank the sexiest teller of all time Next to her the greatest thing about today Is today itself Through which I go up To buy books They float by under a bluer sky The girls uptown Quiet, pampered The sum of all that's terrible in women And much of the best And the old men go by holding small packages In a trance So rich even they can't believe it I think it's a red, white, and blue letter day for them too You see, Con Ed's smokestacks are beautiful The way Queens is And horses: from a pleasant distance Or a fleet of turkeys Stuffed in a spotless window In two days they'll be sweating in ovens Thinking, "How did I ever get in a fix like this?" Light pouring over buildings far away Up here when someone shouts "Hey!" In the street you know that they aren't going to kill you They're yelling to a friend of theirs named Hey John David Hey, perhaps And the garbage goes out In big white billowy plastic bags tied at the top And even the people go out in them Some are waiting now At the bus stop (for a nonexistent bus) And I thought it was garbage! It's so pretty! If you're classless or modern You can have fun by Walking into a high-class antique store So the stately old snob at the desk will ask In eternity "You're going where?" You get to answer, "Up." I like these old pricks If you have an extra hair in the breeze Their eyes pop out And then recede way back As if to say, "That person is on . . . dope!" They're very correct But they're not in my shoes In front of a Dubuffet a circus that shines through A window in a bright all-yellow building The window is my eye And Frank O'Hara is the building I'm thinking about him like mad today (As anyone familiar with his poetry will tell) And about the way Madison Avenue really Does go to heaven And turns around and comes back, disappointed Because up here you can look down on the janitor Or pity him And rent a cloud-colored Bentley and Architecture's so wonderful! Why don't I notice it more often? And the young girls and boys but especially the young girls Are drifting away from school In blue and white wool Wrapped in fur Are they French? They're speaking French! And they aren't looking for things to throw Skirts sliding up the legs of girls who can't keep from grinning Under beautiful soft brown American eyes At the whole world Which includes their Plain Jane girlfriends She even smiled at me! I have about as much chance of fucking her as the girl at the bank But I stride along, a terrifying god Raunchy A little one-day-old beard And good grief I really did forget to brush my teeth this morning They're turning red with embarrassment Or is that blood I've been drinking—I ordered a black coffee Miss And then a black policeman comes in Unbuttoning his uniform at the warmish soda fountain While I pull the fleece over my teeth And stare innocently at the books I've bought One a book with a drawing By Apollinaire called Les Fraises au Mexique Strawberries in Mexico But when I open the book to that page It's just a very blue sky I'm looking at