Ashbery at Eighty

We meet at last, the hat-stand told me,
and just so you know, I’m off for a coffee.
There were pine martens coming out of the air duct,
and with teeth, Frank and I were putting cream on the bites
for months, but hey! this was the edge, this was where
it all went down, and is it bad to invent things, like book
seventy-three, which in fact I never published,
or Vendler review eighty-four, that was hee hee
Cousin Joey from Omaha, there seems to have been some mistake
but everyone, even the sailors, was having too much fun
to notice. How are your fingertips now? Will they grow back?
The ducks crossed the street slowly, very slowly,
and if Brad hadn’t drawn that sketch of himself
on the back of the bus then someone else would have,
surely, before it got late, too late.
Now, funnily enough, I’m tired of this
and I haven’t even mentioned the Pulitzer
or is it an Emmy you keep in the bath. Atchoo!