Atocha Choo-Choo
(for John Ashbery)
The pie here doesn’t taste
As though it were meant
To be eaten nor can I
Sir keep from the simple sweetness
Of seeming to mean
Something, the cheap
Shot of the easy
Deposit of block
A into slot
A, even as our train eases
Out of the station in a series
Of muffled collisions
Not so much discontinuous
As exhibiting a continuity
Apprehensible only to brake-
And signalmen, to whom
I might liken myself
At least insofar as I
Relates to U,
I.e., those signs above the two
Tracks between which we
Must soon choose.
Choose! Choose!
The astonishing shoes not of
Spanish but
Chinese women zip by our window
Suggesting several possibilities.
To wit, 1) None