Never been to Colorado. Don’t know
if I ever will get
over that desire to go
East. With exceptions, a 10-mile
strip of land on either bank
of the Mississippi
River is my invisible
electric fence. A fuchsia
corduroy overcoat and sea
green fishnet
sweater can absorb the shock
only so much.
Filed under Afternoon Poems
No pity. No sighs
behind her back. If
she says the word
out loud, it will become
her. No grace
period. She hums
“Female Jesus”
as she walks
the streets alone
at night—that last
Athens, GA, scene
still fresh. No colder
here than there—
and that’s the real pity.
Filed under Night Poems
If I concentrate
on the color
I might wear
out tomorrow, I could forget
my father is
a hoarder. Even now, tubes
of ChapStick (without
microphones), rolls
of toilet paper, stacks
of Hershey bars (dark
chocolate without
nuts) surround him.
Whoever stole his stash
of words
isn’t talking.
Filed under Overnight Poems
The mayor declares no
more skyways. Till what? We learn how
to design the perfect
compass for indoor air? Now that I know
my way around up there after two
decades, I will not give
them up. A hybrid
walk might spread in all directions
on all levels—inside and out.
Filed under Civil Twilight or Dawn Poems
Before she tells all
in blog hell? Her mind
drizzles dangerously on
winter Sundays. Not
frozen by ironic messages
from a pregnant woman
about saying “baby”
out loud. Maybe it’s not
about the nephew
after all—Baby.
Filed under Afternoon Poems
Your big sister runs
to meet you
the way your second
oldest aunt ran
down the driveway
to tell me the news
when your father was born.
Some chain link fences
are mended
overnight while we sleep.
Some cynicism
can be cured. Leo—
you are a healer
one day into it.
Filed under Afternoon Poems
The public safety
building skyway has nothing
in its display case. No hint
of what got abandoned, what could become
enclosed in glass. She could
start over. Wind her way
through 7+ miles
of second floor passageways.
Could comment on the return
of Minnesota winter. But
another tabula rasa
might serve best to shake
her free of this burden of shoulder
shrugging routine.
Filed under Afternoon Poems
No more talking
about the weather, a giant
dragonfly dangles
from the ceiling
inside a giant
library. Her services
are no longer needed. Justice
will prevail
or fail without her. It’s January—
other topics
can be scarce.
Filed under Civil Twilight or Dawn Poems
An open safety pin
lies on a sidewalk
sprinkled with snow
as the temperature
plummets. She second
guesses her choice
to leave it there. Questions
the optimism she offered
a stranger last week. A weapon
is a weapon. Drunk
driving is driving
drunk, underage or
over it. If she had
a license, it would have caught
up with her
by now. A sigh
and accelerated pace,
pedestrian reprieves
count just as much.
Filed under Morning Poems
arambler.com by Amy Nash is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://wp.me/PyTy3-jL>.
