On the Third Avenue Bridge
over the only spot
where river flow can still be
seen, I let go
of the last trace
of your voice—recording
of how I don’t want
to remember you
erased. What’s left
are those moments
I could see you
still moving. Those falls
rush on a relentless
industrial music.
This Wuthering Heights morning
will give way to nothing
more than a Kentucky afternoon
into a Mississippi River night. Ice
dams and avalanches
and floods—let them be.
What will be will be
on moor, in prohibition speak
easy cave, under Prairie
School eave overnight.
Varnished giclée prints drop her
onto an old farmstead’s surround
with pronounced trees
and roots. She is relieved
not to be
the only one who needs a public
place to be open today—one
besides a church,
or cineplex. She’s more interested
in tiny rebirths
than one monumental birth—those moments
that can unpack themselves
onto any given day’s matte canvas.
No longer his day, it will
come around again—
through slowly stretching
hours of light into shrinking
nights till contraction and expansion
trade places, then trade
again. Just after that final click
to go in reverse, his day
will return. And I hope to be
around to touch it—those untouchable
vibrations and holds.
Light is a memory
of itself by the time
it messes with her
view to cast this shadow
in triplicate. Her hand moves
across a flat whiteness,
her fingers navigate
the journey to this wall
edge—one no descending
darkness can erase.
This color collision—red
splayed onto green—isn’t
on purpose. She would not presume
to celebrate what cannot be
celebrated by someone
whose beliefs lie
inside another palette,
reveal themselves without complementary
aids. It happens—pigments
go where they must, or
where they might. It is that
she chooses this pariah
life—this bundle of exploded light
debris—which spells out memories
left unretrieved. It is this
abandonment
to be true.
They come in all sizes
to unlock doors, lock them
up again. They open
mail boxes, barricade cabinets and diaries
from curious eyes. Chiming
in my loose pocket, they turn
security into a musical instrument
before doubling back as a weapon
on dark, empty streets. They anchor
me to the city. A weight inside,
they keep me
from floating off
the ring around lost
before found.
I don’t remember
the sock monkey, but do
remember our fear
of it. My shadow tripped
over its own darkness
onto stumble
down tracks that no longer
exist. Today I remember
to find light in these
shortest of days,
have almost perfected turning
a corner
into a new moment’s alley
on an evening
you don’t have to carry
me home.
These little books
are my dates
on nights I choose
a spine to keep me
entertained. My little problem is
I choose jellyfish
instead of men. Tonight
there will be no trouble.
Four children four
seasons—does it begin
with spring or winter?
It all depends—
whether we are dormant
before we live, whether
we can begin again, whether
autumn counts at all.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 