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ALLEN GINSBERG: I was living out in California,

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got up middle of the night and went out to get some milk.

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So I went to a supermarket in California.

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What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman,

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for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache

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self-conscious looking at the full moon.

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In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images,

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I went into the neon fruit supermarket dreaming of your enumerations!

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What peaches and what penumbras!

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Whole families shopping at night!

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Aisles full of husbands!

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Wives in the avocados,

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babies in the tomatoes!—and you,

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Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?

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I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless,

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lonely old grubber, poking among the meats in

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the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys.

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I heard you asking questions of each:

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Who killed the pork chops?

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What price bananas from Honduras?

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Are you my angel?

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I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans

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following you and followed in my imagination by the store detective.

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We strode down the open corridors together,

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possessing every frozen delicacy in our solitary

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fancy tasting artichokes and never passing the cashier.

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Where are we going, Walt Whitman?

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The doors close in an hour.

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Which way does your beard point tonight?

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(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel absurd.)

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Will we walk all night through solitary streets?

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The trees add shade to shade,

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lights out in the houses,

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we'll both be lonely.

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Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love

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past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?

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Dear father, graybeard,

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lonely old courage teacher,

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what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got

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out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe?

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