7/29/2019 Peripeteia in a Soggy Snapshot, Featuring Lines by Ashbery and Pronoun Confusion

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Peripeteia in a Soggy Snapshot, Featuring Lines by Ashbery and Pronoun Confusion

Author(s): JOEL BROUWERReviewed work(s):Source: Poetry, Vol. 189, No. 5 (FEBRUARY 2007), pp. 359-361Published by: Poetry FoundationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25799663 .

Accessed: 19/05/2012 17:45

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7/29/2019 Peripeteia in a Soggy Snapshot, Featuring Lines by Ashbery and Pronoun Confusion

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JOEL BROUWER

Peripeteia in a Soggy Snapshot, Featuring Lines

byAshbery and Pronoun Confusion

IfParmigianino had done it...

But he didn't, so let'snot dwell. One thingwas for sure: theyweren't surewho did. Do it.

Take it. (The picture.) Disposable cameras

had been passed around all day, so anyof the friends and familygathered at

Two Dragons Chinese Restaurant could have

snapped thedarling candidwhich weeks later

fluttered from theirpickup's dashboard to a slushy

Rapid City gutter.They blotted. Theyfanned and blow-dried. But their smiling,well-scrubbed

avatars hemorrhaged steadily,bloomed

bruises, receded like angels of historydrawn backward into

fog, andsoon a

darklydithyrambic pair bellied up in shards

of vermilion andmars to stake their claim,

riding a recurringwave of arrival that

fastestablished them as second souls.One

thingwas for sure: the jp's homily

hadmiscalculated theirunion's math

and durability ifsuch a quick

dip could change them frometernal duoof joy to inky-toothedghosts.One thingwas

for sure: theywould be obliged to return

those charming napkin rings.Their other selves

consoled that afterall no one was real

lyever not already in some sense

simulacra, cf. Plotinus. Right. Thanks

a bunch. Still, thepointwas sadly rampant.Deer and buffalo topiary roamed

South Dakota's officeparks. The airplanes

scratchingheaven were so tiny,thegeeseafloat above thegolf coursewere of course

gigantic. Red, white, and blue plastic cups

JOEL BROUWER 359

7/29/2019 Peripeteia in a Soggy Snapshot, Featuring Lines by Ashbery and Pronoun Confusion

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wedged in a fence formed an unwaving flag.Inbrief, tons of troublewith perspective,and thus countless panicky theses

in fast-food drive-thru lines. If everythingissurface nd thesurfaceiswhat's there

and nothingcan existexceptwhat's there

theneverything ssurface.Did Ijust

say that?

One thingwas for sure:Mt. Rushmore

was no help. Beyond theobvious, theyhadmore interest in theirmemories

ofCary Grant and EvaMarie-Saint's vows

atop a soundstage replica of Lincoln's scalp

than in the disfiguredmountain ipso.Still, they stuffedthe telescopes with silver

out of duty,boredom or both at once?

and found thatwhen the faces loomed up throughthe lens, theydid not look like faces at

all, but ratherplain 6Y boulders and cliffs.

When someone told Picasso his portraitof Stein did not look likeher, he said Itwill.

When someone told Picasso thatStein did

not look like her portrait, he said She will.

The storyhas been told bothways.Which is

itself nother story.As I've told it,

they've been on themove. They've taken a room

at the Las Vegas (NM) Motor Court.

Day aftertomorrow they'llpeer down

into that certain volume of lackknown to most as the Grand Canyon.

(That's theirkind of talking,not ours.) They droptheirduffelson theworn orange shag, openawindow to the interstate,and peer

360 POETRY

7/29/2019 Peripeteia in a Soggy Snapshot, Featuring Lines by Ashbery and Pronoun Confusion

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into the snapshot, surveilus, consult

themirror no longer theirs for asmuch

brisk vacancy as is tobe theirportion.One thing is for sure:we have come

to resemble them,but theyno longer do.

She sheathesherself in silk.He sheathes himself

in latex. They commence consummationwithout troubling topull back thebedspread.Next was Death Valley, thenHollywood herewe come.

Everything issurface.Certain volume of lack.

Believe you me.They

were never surer of it.

JOEL BROUWER