Anatomy of a Dress

Small waves strike
the dark stones. The wife reads
the letter. There is nothing irreversible:
points to the last sibilants
of invading beef and calico.

Pretty soon oil has
taken up the place of
the dark around you. It was all
as told, but anyway it never came out just right:
a fraction here, a lisp where it didn’t matter.
It has to be presented
through a final gap: pear trees and flowers
an ultimate resinous wall
basking in the temperate climate
of your identity. Sullen fecundity
to be watched over.

John Ashbery