Listening to Frank O’Hara

Josephine is a tourist and wants to do things spontaneously like go into Jackson McNally and buy Laura Solomon or Short Talks or listen to Frank O’Hara read why he’s not a painter on YouTube, but all she finds is a heartbreaking rendition of ‘Having a coke with you,’ read cigarette in hand, in that melodic voice, American accent dipping and pausing until he asks indirectly, what good is art when all he sees is paint just paint, and his lover all movement, ah such movement and the face, hot beyond portraiture. You need the right person beside the right tree in the right light in the right city and this is love. She hears that and reads of his death.

© Paula Green New York Pocket Book Seraph Press 2016