Having a coke with you
is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye,
Biarritz, Bayonneor 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 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 marvelous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I am telling
you about it
—Frank O'Hara
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