Anticipated Stranger
Anticipated Stranger - meaning Summary
Pain as Bureaucratic Visitor
John Ashbery’s brief poem personifies injury as a visiting bruise that behaves like a clerk: it pauses, records times and temperatures, and leaves a scolding memo for a surrogate. The language frames pain in administrative, detached terms, as if trauma is routed through office procedure. The closing line, God will find the pattern and break it, hints at an outside force interrupting bureaucratic containment and offering possible rupture or rescue.
Read Complete AnalysesThe bruise will stop by later. For now, the pain pauses in its round, notes the time of day, the patient's temperature, leaves a memo for the surrogate: What the hell did you think you were doing? I mean . . . Oh well, less said the better, they all say. I'll post this at the desk. God will find the pattern and break it.
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