Charlottesville is where I bought my Ashbery
driving through to a moonbeam wedding
with the sunroof open and forgotten
like a breezeway between the top

of my brain and the gathering clouds.
At the Ramada he’s left as a passenger
while I spend the night in intercourse
with a fur forest commune, so disappointed

when this becomes a soliloquy that
I ignore the thunder and streaks of mean rain.
Next morning John is bloated and already molded;

by noon ceremonial girls in red stockings
come through the woods bearing what’s left of life,
the I Do’s speechless as if they were goodbyes.