The Couple in the Next Room
The Couple in the Next Room - meaning Summary
Observation of Intimacy and Estrangement
John Ashbery's poem collects spare, image-rich impressions around a neighboring couple and their room. Concrete details, drapes, a leather-clad boy, faded names, slide into elliptical observations about identity, memory, and the erosion of selves. The language resists clear narrative, favoring associative jumps that make intimacy feel both familiar and remote. A final, cooler stanza withdraws into a formal, reflective mood, suggesting deliberation paused behind outward appearances.
Read Complete AnalysesShe liked the blue drapes. They made a star At the angle. A boy in leather moved in. Later they found names from the turn of the century Coming home one evening. The whole of being Unknown absorbed into the stalk. A free Bride on the rails warning to notice other Hers and the great graves that outwore them Like faces on a building, the lightning rod Of a name calibrated all their musing differences. Another day. Deliberations are recessed In an iron-blue chamber of that afternoon On which we wore things and looked well at A slab of business rising behind the stars.
from Houseboat Days (1977)
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