Guest, Barbara: History

  for Frank O'Hara

Old Thing

               We have escaped
               from that pale refrigerator

                            you wrote about

Here

               amid the wild woodbine landscapes
               wearing a paper hat

I recollect

               the idols
               in those frozen tubs

                            secluded by buttresses

               when the Church of

                            Our Lady cried Enough

and we were banished

               Sighing

                            strangers
                            we are

               the last even breath

                            poets

Yet the funicular
was tied by a rope

               It could only cry
               looking down

                            that midnight hill

My lights are
               bright
the walk is 
               irregular

               your initials
               are carved on the sill.

Mon Ami!

               the funicular 
               has a knife

                            in its side
Ah allow these nightingales to nurse us