“Elegy for Archie Ammons” [by Jim Cummins]

Ammons

Last night I read “Part Ten”

Of Archie Ammons’s Garbage

Out loud, twice, in an empty room.

Then stopped in embarrassment

To hear if anyone was listening.

I’d bought the book so many years ago

And carried it with me to New York

The only time I’d ever meet him.

I’m not one for book signings, autographs;

I always thought if what I had left

At the end of life is a bunch

Of signatures, I’d be very sad,

So rely on my imperfect memory

That doesn’t kick in often enough

To recover what is lost;

Like what is lost from that evening:

Me, standing, sweating coldly, empty,

Waiting to read, the rictus grin

What those around me fled from,

Including Archie; and then he couldn’t

Stay after because his wife was ill,

So was gone before I could get up

Enough nerve to ask him

To sign my Garbage.  At the late

Dinner, I sat between two women

Who were interested in me

Up to a point, and then that point

Was reached; and I sat for a while longer,

Listening to some lunatic who later

Became a professional poker player,

Or perhaps already was one;

And then it was time to go.

I went back to the hotel alone—

I always do, the rictus, you know—

Thinking death is an interesting display,

And maybe I’m caught up in the grip

Of a final illusion—that the light

Reaching me on a given day is truly

The light of that day—and maybe

I still exist for now in an infinity

That will be revealed as an illusion

When the countdown to death begins,

When hope is reduced to a number,

The number of days.  So I walk out

Each morning under many different suns,

Some causing my shirt to stick

To my skin, some covering the park

In an antebellum light I often feel

In certain parts of Kentucky.  First,

Archie died, then that good man’s love,

Phyllis, and I was never known to him,

Nor he to me, except in “Part Ten”

Of Garbage; and in his face as he stood

On the stage and introduced me,

And I got up and pretended my poems

Were a reality as real as morning light,

Or the willfulness of dinner-speak,

Or the light a true poet’s face can have

As he stands in a spotlight looking

At his watch, wondering at the illusion

He has set in motion, but only

With a sidelong glance, as it were,

Because he’s gazing beyond it, helpless,

To the numbered days, and feels

The need to get home quickly, quickly.

Ed. note: Archie Ammons (1926-2001) was born on February 18. He is pictured above in his office at Cornell University..

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Author: The Best American Poetry