White, unadorned silk,
her obsession is showing.
How much depends on
how closely you look. If
you comment on it, she may reply:
Oh, it’s supposed to.
That’s the style
as is this gray hair.
Month: April 2010
Before Our First Kiss
We didn’t know. How
could we? I could be
in the midst
of another halo
shadow over hours
untold. Could be
at the nudge
and pause as they ripen
inside a green house
beneath a green roof.
His lips could be
ready, and I would be unpainted
and preoccupied
with this spot on a Formica
table top. An imaginary island
in an imaginary sea.
The What Is Pickle River Cinquain
To be
so colorless
and rhyme blind to the paint
used to cover the bark side is
my song.
Van Aken Boulevard
A forest-killing nightmare, a daydreamer rocks
to 70s radio hits on a black-and-white
checked basement couch. Not ready
to face the daylight pocketed
on a patch of carpet a floor above
her head. It’s the smart
(ass) ones she goes after with a gossamer twined
web she spits into those pipes
running along the ceiling. It doesn’t always stick.
It Says No Judgment Day
Volcanic ash washes
over Europe. The Internet comes
crashing around
our ankles. I smell a generator
run off
at the mouth. And my jaw
aches for a bearing
down closer to where
you might have placed
your tongue
for a measure.
Slender Language
As I become a lake
in a river, I narrow
my view to lines broken
by bridges, galvanized
steel spider
webs over my head.
I would forget the Liffey,
Erie Canal, pomegranate
seeds tucked inside a secret
pocket of stolen narration.
Would recall another Retreat
Drive and wish
to be remembered
for the scent of rosewater,
not the words I couldn’t
say slowly enough
to make you pause.
Day 2,703
Some days she’s not willing
to dig deep
below a scratched surface
truth. Some days she just wants
to see her
reflection crack
and walk on. Some
other days that become nights
she would rather go
blind than acknowledge
the visions trapping
her heart inside an under river
tunnel. This could be
one of those.
No So Long—No Good-bye
This date cannot take me away
from you the way
I almost succeeded in making it
work for me years ago. Got it wrong.
The clouds won’t break
this afternoon. Learning
to walk again, you can rest
your eyes in this patch
of gray. I may escape on foot
for a moment. I will return
to the day breathing
in relief—a sculpture
breaks free of its artist’s grip.
I’m a step outside
Rodin’s Caryatid. I’m climbing
outside someone else’s
imagination working on a dream
where no one has to say
anything. Let those words he says
will never die expire.
Character to Go
No time to explore
the lobby so make it
up as you charge
down the back stair
well. A dry one.
Not a drunk in sight. No mirrors
or reflective glass
walls to encase you
in your own reprieve
from the next flood. A drought
at another bottom. You’ve read
the views bind guests
to spells of stillness.
It’s not the pause
in your story. Are you
that delusional, or are you the real
omnipotent narrator come to quell
the intrusive one?
W
That between hotel rooms
doorway, loop hole
in my story, rarely used,
opens questions
to the last fading
balcony light. Is it
one door or two? If one,
does it lock
on both sides? If on
only one, who chooses who
gets to hold the key?
Would it be you? Would it be me?
Would it be the concierge
deciding if it’s a good night
for matchmaking? Do we fit
his image of accidental lovers,
or would he be wicked
in his plotting domestic traveling
disturbance? Or perhaps he just wants
to see what could happen—lets it drop
into the can
without remembering if
he secured us in or out,
or not at all.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 