The going into winter and the never coming out,
the vanquished castle moving towards a tourist’s
deliberative gulp,
all those links that seemed exquisitely separable
when confronted in an apple on its majestic bough:
they do not break.
Once in dreams, where my innocence was fondled by
my desires, I thought the kiss a blessed phenomenon,
no neural trap;
but now as I lower my head towards you tenderly a wind
from my own mountains blows hair between our eyes,
woeful prospect!
and the waves that frighten you are the knives I courted
yesterday, a vision of clouds that descend thickly to my
flutter of dismay.
I observe a heart tangled in the lines of my verse, as
in those surrealist paintings where an object wails of
intended magnificence.
—Frank O’Hara, A Camera
