Graffiti speaks
to her in codes
she cannot translate
but knows
by heart.
She has never owned
property. Imagines
walls that talk
to everyone
who will listen.
CARS
SHE DOESN’T DRIVE THEM
DOESN’T BULLFIGHT THEM
DOESN’T LIKE TO RIDE IN THEM
¡MALDITOS COCHES!
Exposed rusty rebar
and cavernous potholes
in the Havana calles
cannot kill
her love
of the street
in all its ruined beauty—
exclaimed, whispered, silent.
Keelless. Extinct.
An ancestor
of the sandhill crane.
Gone like the giant
cursorial owl.
So many questions
they aren’t around
to answer.
Did they speak
Taíno? Ciboney?
Did they roll
their R’s? Trilled
Tapped. Every muscle
in the tongue
gets involved.
Every muscle in the body
shouts out
once in a while
when the tension
of desire and air
pressure shift.
Pectoral girdle.
Alveolar ridge.
Cloacal kiss.
A colt
with an unchanged
voice won’t purr.
Who’s to say
which hammock
will hold willing
suspension of infatuation
the longest. I refuse
to ask if
the tobacco
will be
rolled into a cigar
or packed into a pipe.
If I were a bird,
I would swim better
than fly too.
“I always tell the truth,
even when I lie.”
—Tony Montana in Scarface
You were my gateway
drug. My gateway
crime. I drew
on your face
with a broken eraser.
Loaded pistols appeared,
and the word
LOVE faded
under the hot Havana sun.
I did not know
the definition of mortality
when I played
with the hour
glass my grandmother
kept on a round coffee table
in the great room
overlooking the sound.
The only house
that has ever mattered
to me. Every poem
passes through its rooms
to the waterfront porch
where my father taught me
how to tie my shoes
so I could run away.
I wear one
when you find me
standing left
of center
in an American ruin.
Revived. The color
and fabric
ground me
as I wait
to ascend
36,000 feet
in the air.
The sky is
blue as
I have
ever seen it.
if I were brave, I would stop
this / now
I would begin
writing with spray paint
or glue or chalk
or a fingertip
running across
a dirty window / pieces
of plywood / clapboard / welcome
mat nailed together
for an hour or two
if I were brave
I would dance
without music
and keep
perfect time
Then one morning
Alice awakes
to discover
she has grown
irrelevant overnight.
No amount
of social media posts
will reverse
the condition.
Alice being Alice,
she takes her irrelevant
ass to the margins
where she will live
widely unencumbered
in a cloud of white space.
The narrator rarely interrupts
the steady drip
of poems
into a tin can.
So unreliable.
She would need
to empty the can
before calling in
the next turn
or swerve
in the plot. Before
whispering details
about the secret
tragedy that will liver
punch the hero
before nightfall.
She would need
to have a hero
to intrude upon
without warning.
She’s got nothing
but this piece
of string pulled taut
and an echo
of tomorrow’s rain
vibrating through.
This thaw has
nothing to do
with Valentine’s Day
or the ones
that immediately follow.
In a dream,
I immediately follow
a misguided instinct
right down
your cellar steps.
I become
a stalker
your sister finds
cowering beneath
a neglected house plant.
Nothing thaws
in the dream.
Nothing compares
to the look
on her face
as she whispers
get out
before my brother
comes home.
not snowing
her cold smile
preserves the space
between empty
mailboxes
their maws frozen
half open
it’s not optimism
that makes her
think so
the smashed rock
glass was
swept off
the bedroom
floor years ago
that she can’t
remember who
held the broom
or the color
of the eyes
that followed
its strokes
that she does
remember the whiskey’s
deep leather hue
that hinge
between alcoholic
palimpsest and
the minor key
that traps images
inside vivid
ghost craters
does not
rust in
this bitter air
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 