She walks deserted streets. Not the real
you, but one
she’s been fabricating
with rope, leftover images
from an old black-and-white
film. She believes in
rewind, fast forward,
long pauses. The sun
reveals gray
in all its shades—romance
along a wave length,
a particle spinning
and at rest.
She has no way
of knowing where you are,
what you might be
doing in this moment.
Only hopes
you’re in it,
touching something
more real than this
creation that dissolves
under the light.
I would begin with your boots,
would want you to relax
till it was time. I would want
you to do the same, would imagine
you gliding those zippers down
with ease. Snaps
on your shirt would sing
their pop song
as I pulled them apart
to discover what I’ve imagined
would be strong,
broad, well-covered. Amazing
what you can see
through all that hair—this hiding
is a writer’s only true lover
who waits in the dark.
Your cold retreat just days
before becoming
officially on
is a cruel dance
on last night’s sighs
into a buoyant civil
dusk. You turn
me on only to turn
your back to my naked
fantasies of an us—two
turtles on a broken branch
over the rising river.
It crests in the valley
at the convergence
of the small into
the mighty. Floods
a grain terminal
in new repurpose, drowns
an island for now, distracts
me from your absence.
This pulled-up leather
collar collides
with that last image
I’ve been working
into you.
Turns out musicians
are mortals—shouldn’t be
a surprise. All those young
martyrs. But still it is.
You’re the latest
demonstrator.
You left behind
one of the best. And because
I, too, am
mortal and
a thief, I can’t resist:
“I can’t get a license
to drive in my car. But
I don’t really need it,
if I’m a big star.”
Step outside
the city
on a clear night.
Note: Stolen lyric from “O My Soul,” by Alex Chilton, from the album Radio City.
Who waits
for the river
to rise rises
above reds
to reach clay
tinted sky. Who
runs from dry
spells into March
gusts and shifted
light shifts
with each new
calibration.
This window
then that becomes
highlights for whomever
remains.
He was minus three
when those songs from heaven
were playing on
AM radio. I was zero.
When he was zero, I was
in Northern Illinois
learning how
to say three instead
of free.
I would never be
so much so again. No multiples
will return me
to that coincidence—one
he’ll never know.
Dark lipstick stains
on the rim
of a coffee mug, a juice
glass, cigarette
filter, napkin, so far
from the neighborhood
of your lips—they can’t be tagged.
Equivocation—poetry
in strong,
skilled hands, mud
in most. Who am I
to seek twins
standing up to one another
in this historic park?
Who do you think
you are to judge
my choice of wrapping
through another stretch
of drizzle? Who
do you think I am
when you gaze this way
that way? Who
do I think you are
when I forget
what I might say
to you under its grip?
I’m thinking
fraternal ones
and three grown
sisters, one
weirder than the next.
Aphasia is anonymous
in its demand
that poems be
written
without words.
I’m not ready to give
mine up. The wave
of an ampersand
ropes them in
just in time.
Methodist metronome
middle age middle C
mill Minneapolis
Minnesota Minnesota
River minor
deity Mississippi
headwaters Mississippi
river monk
monosyllables moon
moon cup moonless mosaic
tile mother
moths motion mount
mountain mountains
mouth muddy water
multimodal murmur
trestle muse muses
nagahyde naked
apes New England New
Haven New Jersey New
Jersey Shore New
Jersey Transit New
Orleans new soul new
wine New York New York City New
York fire truck New
York subway Newark
Airport newborn
Nick Drake
Nicollet Mall Farmer’s
Market night night
club North Atlantic North
Clark Street northern
Minnesota nostalgia
nudes nymphs
obsession.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 