When red
umbrellas bleed
in a late winter rain, all the girls
she used to be
parade down streets
in their yellow slickers and fisherman’s
sou’westers. And who she is
now follows behind
with a tin pail to capture
her favorite
colors before they run
into the gutter.
She could sweat it
out, but it wouldn’t change
the colors, wouldn’t bring
any of them
back. Laughter
doesn’t come easily
for her. She sees
the humor
and the irony
in it all—giggles
on the inside. Does she dare
to read
the Sunday
New York Times
someone left
behind on the table
next to her. Does she dare,
does she dare, does she
dare. One more time
and it could become
a real question
with correct punctuation.
In closing, some stand back
in their standard poses,
others have taken
the fall into a pile
of limbs and tiny torsos. All
white-washed and naked
and smoothed over and buckled
under the expanse
of gray carpet
in an empty showroom
where the sales fell
short. Where they go
next is a recycler’s dream
I hope to have tonight.
A door-to-door
salesman who sells doors,
he can’t hang on
a gate without
walls or a fence
to give it purpose. He swings
on bars
parallel to nothing
anyone can see. But he does,
and it’s hinged
in brass. And
he won’t stop there.
There’s a story behind
Staten Island Ferry
orange. I can’t tell
it but can hear its tone
revealed in a soothing voice-
over through early morning fog.
Routine commuting becomes heightened
by the transcendent
moments before
the marathon begins
on the Verrazano
Narrows Bridge. By a skyline
permanently scarred, by a keel
built with steel
from collapsed towers, by film
and TV footage of our favorite
characters crossing one way
or the other. Sometimes someone
who’s had too much
winds up where he started
without getting closer
to home. Color
declares, or hides, or widens
the channel for multiple
interpretations. Always the same
orange, always the same
distance either way.
A giant billboard boasts
the intrinsic appeal
of Duluth in winter. A woman paces back
and forth beside a café table
as she talks on her cell. I wouldn’t
want to live in a cave
or a cell or
Duluth any time
of year. I’m always early—
overestimating the duration
of everything. I might wait
in a cave
or a cell
for a meeting with one of those blues
harp players who’s never
on time. I don’t think
I’d wait in Duluth.
Never been to Colorado. Don’t know
if I ever will get
over that desire to go
East. With exceptions, a 10-mile
strip of land on either bank
of the Mississippi
River is my invisible
electric fence. A fuchsia
corduroy overcoat and sea
green fishnet
sweater can absorb the shock
only so much.
Before she tells all
in blog hell? Her mind
drizzles dangerously on
winter Sundays. Not
frozen by ironic messages
from a pregnant woman
about saying “baby”
out loud. Maybe it’s not
about the nephew
after all—Baby.
The public safety
building skyway has nothing
in its display case. No hint
of what got abandoned, what could become
enclosed in glass. She could
start over. Wind her way
through 7+ miles
of second floor passageways.
Could comment on the return
of Minnesota winter. But
another tabula rasa
might serve best to shake
her free of this burden of shoulder
shrugging routine.
Could be small drops
of Eastern European blood
in my veins—a Polish cynic
leaning into the light. Could be
the quiet I seek to escape
into without a translator
to jar me awake. A weekend’s worth
of forgotten dreams and whisperings
sworn on ice
and still
I can’t shake your face
in profile. Presumed innocence
and feature-flattening, color-draining
fear. Your perfectly enunciated
“Thank you!” lifted me
higher than any Art Deco
elevator transporting me
to the top of the Foshay Tower.
It’s a blessing
to choose well.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 