Discovered in Earth’s mantle. What
would it take to leave
the troposphere
for the stratosphere
for the mesosphere? All the way
to the thermosphere. What
about the pauses between? What
do I really know
about my own epidermis,
dermis, hypodermis? What
if I discovered a hidden layer
in there? Would you come
looking for me there?
Frozen shut for months,
a gate begins to swing. She swallows,
breathes in warming air. Time
to speak up again. Letters taste as foreign
as rusted hinges
and shallow pools
of sweet brine. So many alphabet
flavors to acquire.
I’m having your
miscarriage is the worst
song title since the one
that begins
dyslexic. Sometimes I do
the math. To torture
myself, yes, but more
to torture the memory
of a daughter (not son)
that never got constructed
to be forgotten. I carry
this bus transfer
from a Monday morning
in March with me
in my purse to be
a birthday card
to my 23-year-old child.
To be memento mori
for you and me.
The hot
water gushing
from the ceiling
for example. Artificial
tears from a tiny
squeezable
bottle. The expiration
date tattooed
on her hip. No
one checked there.
Don’t wake
the monster inside.
Quiet as you go. Don’t feed
the geese on the pond
behind the castle
where the monster lives.
They’ll get used
to it. Demand more.
Ever been pecked
or bitten into submission?
Nothing fun
about it. If your wrist aches
from sleeping on it
funny, spend your waking
days doing something funnier
than planning
your own wake
with the sound on mute.
“Living it up
at the Hotel
California” tortures her
with gray
memories. She’ll blame
it on the antihistamines.
The way coffee appears
in that translucent cobalt
blue mug. The way
each word laid down
suddenly looks foreign
to her eye. Backwards
is an unwanted side-to-side
motion she has no rudder
to stabilize.
She doesn’t purchase
the wobble
board. Gets no purchase
behind the joke.
Hypochondria never
took off
so gracefully. Never
mind the landing.
When the sequence
of events leading to your NDE
gets fuzzy,
you may think
you are cured. A sore
arch and bruised
thigh don’t need to sound
off uninterruptible alarms
when you know
their origins. Never mind yours.
His. Ours. Endings.
Just the facts.
If she’s really letting me
speak
for the first time, I don’t know
where to begin. All those stories
about drawing pictures
in the moonmilk
inside ancient caves and rods
taking longer than cones
to adjust to the dark. That’s not how
I would talk. I don’t have a lisp
or thick Minnesota accent, or
New England one. I will sing
quietly about iron
rail bridges and natural rock
formations and the view
from the top. That’s
exactly what I will do if
she’s for real this time.
Looking past the ice
on the pond, she decides
facts get in the way.
She could fast forward
to spring
with the right attitude.
She’s more afraid of prose
poetry than formal verse
or 140-character chants.
She walks the perforated
line between
with a hot beverage
in her hand and shouts:
Be refreshed.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 