Strawberries in Mexico

At 14th Street and First Avenue

Is a bank and in the bank the sexiest teller of all time

Next to her the greatest thing about today

Is today itself

Through which I go up

To buy books

They float by under a bluer sky

The girls uptown

Quiet, pampered

The sum of all that's terrible in women

And much of the best

And the old men go by holding small packages

In a trance

So rich even they can't believe it

I think it's a red, white, and blue letter day for them too

You see, Con Ed's smokestacks are beautiful

The way Queens is

And horses: from a pleasant distance

Or a fleet of turkeys

Stuffed in a spotless window

In two days they'll be sweating in ovens

Thinking, "How did I ever get in a fix like this?"

Light pouring over buildings far away

Up here when someone shouts "Hey!"

In the street you know that they aren't going to kill you

They're yelling to a friend of theirs named Hey

John David Hey, perhaps

And the garbage goes out

In big white billowy plastic bags tied at the top

And even the people go out in them

Some are waiting now

At the bus stop (for a nonexistent bus)

And I thought it was garbage!

It's so pretty!

If you're classless or modern

You can have fun by

Walking into a high-class antique store

So the stately old snob at the desk will ask

In eternity

"You're going where?"

You get to answer, "Up."

I like these old pricks

If you have an extra hair in the breeze

Their eyes pop out

And then recede way back

As if to say, "That person is on . . . dope!"

They're very correct

But they're not in my shoes

In front of a Dubuffet a circus that shines through

A window in a bright all-yellow building

The window is my eye

And Frank O'Hara is the building

I'm thinking about him like mad today

(As anyone familiar with his poetry will tell)

And about the way Madison Avenue really

Does go to heaven

And turns around and comes back, disappointed

Because up here you can look down on the janitor

Or pity him

And rent a cloud-colored Bentley and

Architecture's so wonderful!

Why don't I notice it more often?

And the young girls and boys but especially the young girls

Are drifting away from school

In blue and white wool

Wrapped in fur

Are they French? They're speaking French!

And they aren't looking for things to throw

Skirts sliding up the legs of girls who can't keep from grinning

Under beautiful soft brown American eyes

At the whole world

Which includes their Plain Jane girlfriends

She even smiled at me!

I have about as much chance of fucking her as the girl at the bank

But I stride along, a terrifying god

Raunchy

A little one-day-old beard

And good grief I really did forget to brush my teeth this morning

They're turning red with embarrassment

Or is that blood

I've been drinking—I ordered a black coffee

Miss

And then a black policeman comes in

Unbuttoning his uniform at the warmish soda fountain

While I pull the fleece over my teeth

And stare innocently at the books I've bought

One a book with a drawing

By Apollinaire called Les Fraises au Mexique

Strawberries in Mexico

But when I open the book to that page

It's just a very blue sky I'm looking at

Source: Collected Poems (Coffee House Press, 2013)

The New York School of Poets