A walk on the just opened stretch
of High Line is hardly
the wild side. If this is my lizard
brain jotting down
these notes, I may as well slam
back another mug
of black coffee, check the time
on my cell every ten
minutes, keep walking
into fragmented images,
unconscious hues
of primitive thought. I’ll stick out
a forked tongue to hail
a cab for the memory
of other rides and rest
stops to be secured.
Free associate my home
with rehab. Go ahead. Ivy here entwines
a power line, a Jefferson Lines bus
gets towed. I’m on our only light
rail train traveling south. Will make an exit
by air. Wherever I go, I must
rehabilitate or stall out.
Burned out, abandoned with warnings that exhale
on the stern facade. One letter per pane, tagger’s red
paint spells it out for me:
E L E V A T O R
S H A F T
D O N O T
E N T E R Never mind
the barbed wire fence, I
wasn’t planning to make that leap. The clock
on that shuttered Romanian community center across
the street reminds me
it’s 5:45 pm
same as last fall and the visit before that. Still there will be
more stairs to climb.
In rain and close
air, the empty park haunts
her view of what could
have been. More solitude
than romance, determination
not despair, yet this damp
quietude distorts all patterns. Subdued
till a lone man trots along
the southern path. A leather jacket
will need peeling
in sudden heat. And still
she can’t see where ghosts go
to sweat it out.
Why play dumb? If I could
drink, you know
I would. I would,
I would. Never coy,
I might get there
yet. To be protected
by a tall man, aging orange
cat, I would give
myself away. This long
narrow bed is just
for naps. I pretend
to be sleeping—too shy
to pretend
to be dead.
I saw worms everywhere curling
and pulsating across
the sidewalk the day before. Airport
terminal power mysteriously out
the day before. Seductive electricity
shreds after midnight
the day of. Morning showers
give way just long enough
to put me in a Sunday afternoon
trance. Those sirens have nothing
on us—cat and me—the moment
of. Just a few miles north
flattens. The day before
sinks to the muddy bottom
of puddles where urban legends
have drowned.
A wedge of lime and one of lemon
in her drink—is it allowed? Scorn
for the drunk who smashes
into her—is it allowed? Reading
poetry by candlelight in First
Avenue before the main act takes
the stage—is it allowed? A woman
crunches on something in a plastic bag—the sound
of almost breaking teeth, is it
allowed? She’s on edge—with or without
permission—even as the sun opens
wide a written-off day. Your ghost
keeps showing up uninvited.
These northern potholes could be
sculptural—but no. Wild ginger
in her hair, no one’s going to tell
her fest is not
a word. Rain
won’t dissolve
the definition. She’ll know by scent
when to pause, take cover, push on.
Birch logs lean against a bearing
wall unattached
to any story I can see. I live local
except when my fears go
express. I would roll my eyes at the one train
town except I would do it
all wrong. The rolling. Never could
raise one brow unhitched
from its mate. That tongue curling trick
goes unnoticed—a genetic disposition
toward depression and intensity
without regard for subject
or consequences. No one left
to blame—just a single obsidian
countenance to spill
onto this blanched nature.
With this table flush
against the peach
wall. Words and precious
residue won’t spill. Salvage
everything save time. Nothing
but it will do. Wobbles is a copout
term. Tabula rasa even worse. Clutter
corrects itself
while she works. Evening retrieval
would secure her—sustain us best.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 