Mary Desti’s ass

In Bayreuth once / we were very good friends of the Wagners / and I stepped in once / for Isadora so perfectly / she would never allow me to dance again / that’s the way it was in Bayreuth // the way it was in Hackensack / was different / there one never did anything / and everyone hated you anyway / it was fun, it was clear / you knew where you stood // in Boston you were never really standing / I was usually lying / it was amusing to be lying all / the time for everybody / it was like exercise // it means something to exercise / in Norfolk Virginia / it means you’ve been to bed with a Nigra / well it is exercise / the only difference is it’s better than Boston // I was walking along the street / of Cincinnati / and I met Kenneth Koch’s mother / fresh from the Istanbul Hilton / she liked me and I liked her / we both liked Istanbul // then in Waukegan I met a furniture manufacturer / and it wiped out all dreams of pleasantness from my mind / it was like being pushed down hard / on a chair / it was like something horrible you hadn’t expected / which is the most horrible thing // and in Singapore I got a dreadful / disease it was amusing to have bumps / except they went into my veins / and rose to the surface like Vesuvius / getting cured was like learning to smoke // yet I always loved Baltimore / the porches which hurt your ass / no, they were the steps / well you have a wet ass anyway / if they’d only stop scrubbing // and Frisco where I saw / Toumanova “the baby ballerina” except / she looked like a cow / I didn’t know the history of the ballet yet / not that that taught me much // now if you feel like you want to deal with / Tokyo / you’ve really got something to handle / it’s like Times Square at midnight / you don’t know where you’re going / but you know // and then in Harbin I knew / how to behave it was glorious that / was love sneaking up on me through the snow / and I felt it was because of all / the postcards and the smiles and kisses and the grunts / that was love but I kept on traveling