Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash » Afternoon Poems

No More Bloomingdale’s Minnesota

Arambler — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 02:08:12 +0000

In closing, some stand back
in their standard poses,
others have taken
the fall into a pile

of limbs and tiny torsos. All
white-washed and naked
and smoothed over and buckled
under the expanse

of gray carpet
in an empty showroom
where the sales fell

short. Where they go
next is a recycler’s dream
I hope to have tonight.

Curse of the Cult of Personality

Arambler — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 23:24:28 +0000

A door-to-door
salesman who sells doors,
he can’t hang on

a gate without
walls or a fence
to give it purpose. He swings

on bars
parallel to nothing
anyone can see. But he does,

and it’s hinged
in brass. And
he won’t stop there.

Seen Through Fog

Arambler — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 18:21:07 +0000

There’s a story behind
Staten Island Ferry
orange. I can’t tell
it but can hear its tone
revealed in a soothing voice-

over through early morning fog.
Routine commuting becomes heightened
by the transcendent
moments before
the marathon begins

on the Verrazano
Narrows Bridge. By a skyline
permanently scarred, by a keel
built with steel
from collapsed towers, by film

and TV footage of our favorite
characters crossing one way
or the other. Sometimes someone
who’s had too much
winds up where he started

without getting closer
to home. Color

declares, or hides, or widens
the channel for multiple
interpretations. Always the same
orange, always the same
distance either way.

Of Unsalted Seas

Arambler — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 01:35:18 +0000

A giant billboard boasts
the intrinsic appeal
of Duluth in winter. A woman paces back

and forth beside a café table
as she talks on her cell. I wouldn’t
want to live in a cave

or a cell or
Duluth any time
of year. I’m always early—

overestimating the duration
of everything. I might wait
in a cave

or a cell
for a meeting with one of those blues
harp players who’s never

on time. I don’t think
I’d wait in Duluth.

Overheard

Arambler — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 02:15:46 +0000

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.

Who Will Copyright Her Red Soles

Arambler — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:09:48 +0000

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.

Born Yesterday

Arambler — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 00:07:14 +0000

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.

Blanks

Arambler — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 02:10:58 +0000

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.

Juror’s Requiem

Arambler — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 01:32:28 +0000

Could be small drops
of Eastern European blood
in my veins—a Polish cynic
leaning into the light. Could be
the quiet I seek to escape
into without a translator
to jar me awake. A weekend’s worth
of forgotten dreams and whisperings
sworn on ice
and still

I can’t shake your face
in profile. Presumed innocence
and feature-flattening, color-draining
fear. Your perfectly enunciated
“Thank you!” lifted me
higher than any Art Deco
elevator transporting me
to the top of the Foshay Tower.
It’s a blessing
to choose well.

Glare

Arambler — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 23:41:38 +0000

To panic about ice
yet to form, comments yet
to be made, technology
yet to break down,
a Coleridge poem printed

and not read
is to be most afraid
of how serendipity dances
across pavers—
cracked or not.