A clogged bathroom sink
drain propels her
into a Monday morning
thunderstorm. Most organs can’t be
recycled. Is command
really an alternative
to control? A name attached
to a body is still
just a name. Who she is
when the afternoon sun evaporates
pavement puddles
is another truth.
They design Kentucky Derby hats
from precisely cut paper and memories half
illuminated by bourbon and slightly bruised
mint. Wide brimmed around the eye, mine
would go up in flames if
I got too close. Still a conversation before
the heat and muddle could count
towards tomorrow morning’s evening out.
A sharp ripeness that finally surfaces
in the thaw is not yours. You are solitude
well-spun. Shoes collect beneath
your feet to remind you
how slowly things change—till suddenly long
boots make no sense. Rarely do you exit high
lonesome. And to admit it—never.
Wind blows over
assumptions about a season. Not this year.
Come back next. Those tiny buds break
my heart. Teased
into believing warmth
would change me. Waiting
for the next me to bloom, I can’t
put this one in the back
of the closet yet. The crowded front
muffles a familiar hum—to be released.
Stories readying to be
created from a dollhouse’s freshly painted walls. I slept
in that beautiful, long-legged woman’s house
in Georgia in another life. A man who walks
with arms behind his back scares me
with silent questions. Why? When? Where?
Really just why. I don’t want
to wake from this dream to find no dollhouse
with secret cellar door
leading to where it all happened
in another underground. Lyric or narrative
dreamer—who can remember well enough to tell.
My criminal act concealed
for now we roam beneath bare
branches. Follow the river down
for a radical blossoming
before another cyclone wrecked
hillside. Sneezes for no reason—
there’s never a reason
to be so coy. Forgiveness begins
at the head of the falls.
Bucked on her own bicycle
through Central Park in the rain. Blue
Man Group was still blue
babies recovering from that original choke
without tubes. Never knowing
the price of gas anywhere. She could no more
identify the car you drive than you could
label her a type of flower that grows through cracks
in the sidewalk. Could be any day—she chooses
to call this one her station.
If she plays exquisite
corpse alone
and the window washer hangs
in his own suspension above, who
will look out, who
might receive the bouquet
after the bottles
are drained? Could fold
down and pass
it to a stranger. Could tug
on his line till he touches her
ground where a new game might begin.
Multistory projections crowd her
view of the river before bottom
dwellers came to divide
it into chapters—a beginning,
middle, end, begin again
in layers over the only naturally occurring
falls. A narrative—perpetual
and more powerful than a light
show or bank swoons—
won’t stick. Who needs
a plot so thick.
John Berryman’s name
surfaces twice in one week, Medusa’s head
appears in print, then on a wall, next
a ceiling, or could be hanging midair
in atrium space. Clichés from Friday afternoon
haunt her come Sunday evening, no matter who
she speaks to on Saturday, no matter whose
voice warms then breaks
open her heart. Lost
wax casting is an industry
she can believe in without
having to see. In nine technical steps, her form
is firm and free.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 