When streaks of white
light death (instead
of frenzied fireflies)
interrupt the night
sky, who can say
which way the sun might
set in a hundred years.
Who can say this
is it, or it isn’t
the last chance
to change my mind
about those benefits offered
when only darkness remains.
I like to correspond with the dead:
Tell Emily what it’s like to be
a woman alone
in a room
in the 21st.
Ask Walt what he thinks
of the Brooklyn Bridge
127 years after
the fact. The fact is
I can write to anyone. I could
even choose to write
a letter
to you who still breathe.
* from Walt Whitman’s “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”
“The guitar’s a-started
Playing by itself.”
—Jack Kerouac, from the 50th Chorus to “San Francisco Blues” (Book of Blues)
Hot wind and time
to be
alone converge
at an intersection
I won’t remember
tomorrow morning
when light breaks open
that hill behind me.
The spillage will be automatic,
will startle longing
in shades of red.
Don’t ask
how I know. These are the split
movements beyond control.
A pair of roof prism
binoculars to spy on
the ivy-covered brick
across the alley, a scoop
back black
dress she might buy for one
night of swooning
over the Pacific, she’s not looking
to rekindle
any illusions
that sparks did fly
high above the liars pit,
not mailing that letter
with too many
stamps to start a bonfire
on the site
where a round building
came down. (Was it
because of the architect,
Sandy?) She’s just adjusting
the tiny barrels
to get a closer look
at the way those leaves press
against a wall.
Hours the color of quarry
beds, a walk that gets extended because of a need to stitch
the river
to her breath, she calculates how long
it will take
for the fragrance of rose
water to reach the bottom. She wishes it would stay longer
on her skin—might as well get
the dive over with.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 