Twenty years ago when she thought she would live
forever, she tried to cut it
short. Twenty years later, she’s doing all she can
to preserve each daily miracle. Joy
Division was rattling in
her head: “She’s Lost Control.” Who knows what
the Roadhouse jukebox
was pumping out. It was Neil Young who awakened her
with a “Harvest Moon”
in April to a morning she didn’t know she would want
to know. Some dates are best
forgotten. She’s the lucky one who gets to remember the long play.
Dumptruck sings “Get off
my island.” Used to be
my refrain even though
I’ve always known no one
(especially me) can really own
it. Just missed going to college
with one Dumptrucker. Shared a cab
from the Lower East Side to Prospect Heights
early one Sunday morning with another.
An oral history gets written
down. What gets lost
in translation becomes ghost
poems that only recite
themselves under waxing
crescent moons. But when they do,
you can hear them echo
up freshly rained-on empty streets
with titles like “urban spring” and “long live
the lighthouse keeper.”
“I wish I could speak sky.”
—Richard Hell (“Boy Meets Death, Boy Falls in Love” in Hot and Cold)
And still a shadowy figure
and steady footsteps stamping the rain
behind me cause trouble. I must retire
from this life before
it retires me. Says the old one, says
who. Five o’clock on a Friday flows
in both directions—make it three,
four, more. I see
the water sculpture gain
momentum as it spills off
the edge of a tower
atrium balcony. They move
waterfalls on rivers
as famous as the Mississippi
and others you can’t name too. What
should I do
with you now? Hot and cold. I flip
through it in a crowded Starbucks—sketched
penises fly by. And you—naked
on one page. I can’t stop
to stare/admire you/it.
In a crowded Starbucks.
That’s what I get
for pulling you out
here—for taking in
my daily double shot
espresso in a crowded Starbucks
in the first place. The last place
would be where a stranger refuses
to pass me.
A big, bold-faced metal paper
clip causes a bump
in her writing. It affixes
a lost father’s
face to a daughter’s
daily desire to become attached
to just the right
image. A reminder—like the callus
on her left
middle finger. Not a gesture
of defiance, but a gentle nod
to left-handed beauty
and respect. And a big black
bird scrapes the sky overhead.
No ode—pastoral
or urban
myth—will do. No
flag raising
in any pattern or
color. No parades—though
he loved them.
It’s an odd.
A prime.
The current count:
7 days to make a week.
7 notes on a musical scale.
7 attributes of physicality.
7 words to Step 7 begins humbly.
7 home states plus one.
7 children and grandchildren.
7 months to make a preemie.
Some say seven is
this world.
What comes next? I might ask him.
To listen for an answer
in night-falling murmurs
of an otherworldly pulse becomes
the point—not the answer itself.
Fear is the only four letter word
I need to say
to be free. Another season begins
to break
without him. A patch of sidewalk
ice melts
into a small lake, freezes again
overnight. Spring
can’t get any traction. Somewhere
an empty suitcase, an empty raincoat,
an empty tomb. Don’t forget (a parent
or sister might say)
to snap
a mental picture
of those ocean waves breaking
open another calm
after a late winter storm.
I can almost taste
the snow—nothing
good ever comes
from that. A late March double
espresso might neutralize
the palate. Might
not. A family
reunion in August resuscitated
to honor my father. I
never went when he was
alive. How can I
go now? August is
the month of grand
gestures, spiritual releases.
August is
the month he left
us. Yes, I told him
he could let go, but
how could I know
what it would be like
to live in a world without
his heart beating
in it? August is the month
when water
falling majesty just
might return.
The morning’s unexcused
absence can lead to another,
then another, and
still another till
truncated days are
all we get. Our children’s
children will dream of civil
dawn the way we long
for a pristine shoreline, pine
forest, subway wall, guitar
riff. Saudade
for time of day
as much as for a place
or soul we never knew
renders us
human all over again.
I have become a double
shot espresso to make
the transition from afternoon
to evening smooth. To become civil
twilight burning full
force through
late winter urges
me onward. March’s
sooty snow be damned.
Another one
passes. Halfway around
without him. The heat
of late summer
was closing in
that morning. Now late winter
hints at thaw
before another day
closes just a little bit
later than the one
before. Still not used to it.
Startled and chilled
by moments of awareness
of nonexistence. Or,
is that it? He exists
in the route I take
each morning to work,
in the choices
I make when I am truly
awake, in the words
I retrieve—sometimes with excruciating
slowness. In the messages
I hear in that February
wind. He’s there
in the backdrop
to an overripe
moon. There propelling
me to imagine the next
full one. Then again—
an infinitesimal speck,
how can I know? And that’s it—
the spiritual collision
he would have me lean into.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 