She wears
no mask to honor
those dead—in her own
voice. A preoccupation
with cemeteries may end
tomorrow. Or her identity
will be revealed
by other naked means.
Month: October 2011
I Am Chronic
Each poem, drunk, diary
entry. Each smoke, vitamin,
obsession. Each song
lyric, verbal tick, chapter
read. Each piece
of chocolate, mile
walked, resentment nursed.
I am each reprieve.
Glass Plan
To run a marathon, write
a book, publish
a poem, make
love to a woman, join
a commune, find
a home, see the world,
to call it a day
is to spin my own
epitaph on a 3 x 5
note card, index
my breath, become obsessed
with chasing my own
past, is to take
a long ride on a train.
Token Rolls
With that simple placement
of a single red
rose in your tended
gravesite flowerbed
I say good-bye. Still I see
your face, hear your voice
in strangers conversing
as they do their jobs
in your hometown. Whoever reads
the message I attached to the thorn
will know the code
to break your inappropriate hold
on my life. Some symbols
need to die.
Found Tags
Fear ghosts,
god, graffiti, guardian
angels, and
home.
On the Slope
She tucks a note
into the flower bed beside
his tombstone to start
an anonymous conversation
with all the other cemetery
saviors who may hit this graveyard
before leaves camouflage
the beginning and end
dates engraved in stone
and mute everything in between.
Unconsummate
A bed of pine needles
because it’s Massachusetts.
You wear a shirt studded
with diamond-shaped snaps
two nights in a row. I’ll never tell
you how I like the gray
in your beard
the way I told him never
to shave his off
30 years ago. I won’t mix
you up. The music is
immortal. The flowers he grew
were something else.
Howdhecatchem
You say let’s celebrate
Columbo—not
Columbus—Day. I’ll dirty
my trench coat
for you. I could be a detective
the way I’ve perfected the stalk
without disturbing
anyone, especially the dead. I yell
at those people
who climb on the red metal
sculpture in a public garden.
It’s not a slide. I’m no grave
digger. Archaeologist—never. Who
gets to say what’s sacred or how
to achieve closure? It’s time to give
those bones a rest.
Woburn, Mass.
So this is the setting
of those high school days I made
you long for. This is you
at the age I was
when we met. So that was your secret
ambition. That’s your smile
before the war
bent it out of shape. So this is me
trying to make sense of the ultimate
why
our paths crossed in the exact
tangled deformation
they did.
Knotted
Graffiti artists or civil
engineers leave
their mark on a sidewalk
outside an abandoned gas station. A half empty
bottle of Coors, one soaked pack
of Camels beside
your tombstone—vandals or care
takers. The golden
section, topology, a field
trip to the MIT Computation Center. Figures
may not lie, but street addresses can
disappear. What’s left is
open to interpretation.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 