“Variations on Saturday”
by Frank O’Hara
2
Up at the gate we waited too
and the tree with its root
in the river
we climbed up
the steep side to the waterfall
feeling kissy in the cold
forest
when I pull you away
from the tree to me
it’s not
just to get up the cliff
and rejoin the others that’s
a sailor’s grasp fingernails
your lips are so different
from your palms
“Oranges: 12 Pastorals”
by Frank O’Hara
6
The light only reaches half way across the floor where we lie, your hair elaborated by my breath.
Your dolls grovel against you like suckling pigs.
As we roll these pebbles that we picked from the sand years ago I see your eyes grow green.
Hear how our lives were changed by the sea whispering from the shell.
I have ripped your dress! I shall now rip you up the middle and eat your seeds!
And now at last I know you. When we meet in the streets how painfully we shall blush!— but in the fields we shall lie down together inside a bush and play secretly.
We know each other better than anyone else in the world.
And we have discovered something to do.
“Gamin”
by Frank O’Hara
All the roofs are wet
and underneath smoke
that piles softly in
streets, tongues are
on top of each other
mulling over the night.
We lay against each other
like banks of violets
while the slate slips
off the roof into the
garden of the old lady
next door. She is my
enemy. She hates cats
airplanes and my self
as if we were memories
of war. Bah! when you
are close I thumb my
nose at her and laugh.
