FRANK O’HARA

is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye,
Biarritz, Bayonne

or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in
Barcelona

partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier
St. Sebastian

partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for
yoghurt

partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches

partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people
and statuary

it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be
anything as still

as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in
front of it

in the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and
forth

between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles

and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just
paint

you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them

                                                                                 I look

at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in
the world

except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s in
the Frick

which thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go
together the first time

and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care
of Futurism

just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase

or

at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that
used to wow me

and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do
them

when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when
the sun sank

or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn’t pick the rider
as carefully

as the horse

                it seems they were all cheated of some marvellous

experience

which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I’m telling
you about it