She’s going to write another
poem about how she almost
moved
to Georgia. And she’ll use
move
at least two more times
before finding relief
for a blistered left
thumb. This burn—an accident.
An embarrassment.
An encounter
with a flat
iron nothing like the wedge
of a building where her former
self began.
Then the move
back
to Connecticut, then the big one
to Minneapolis—not Athens.
One music town
or another
moves
ahead. A northern girl
in the end—so far.
And this white shirt
with stick figure faces
wrapping around the sleeves
could only be an icebreaker
in an early morning
dream. Your mother says
I need a man’s opinion. I say,
remember the dilapidated white house
with that front porch reduced
to a stoop where your sister lived
her first year of college? That’s how
you know me—I lived there
too. And now (because it’s one
of those unfolding at civil
dawn) your mother drives us
to a farmstead you recognize. I don’t.
A few thousand miles west
of that house. You’re someone’s brother
and still
you rest your hand
over mine as if
to say it’s going to be
okay. I wake before I can
reply, how do you know.
Not ready for the flash
mob to erase her
memory of him. Or
his name. She confesses
to her Connecticut days
and nights. No one
will recognize her
in this white tee, black
hoody, blue jeans, white
sneakers. She could—and
she will—take
another route home.
The crumbs
she brushes off
the table will become
the place
she dreams
of reaching by train
before civil dawn. And
the rhythm
she feels
will overpower anything
any one
of us might hear.
A paint lab, energy
substation, master
space plan mapping
more than a backyard
newsroom—the day
gets done without
losing a square
foot of roof
garden produce. Someone will
still push the clock
ahead 32 hours
from now. Even urban
farmers need
space to dream.
Skyway food service
shuts down after five—
then the dancing begins. Local hip
hop escapes her
notice but not the flailing
limbs of that young man
with a mop. An ink
and coffee and rain
stained Post-It pad still holds
its orange—a sky
she won’t meet
till winter washes away.
In a transformer
world, carpet
tiles are never new
even when they are—
melted thumb
tacks or dog
collars in a former
life. If I could memorize
a color, I wouldn’t need
a sample room
tucked inside
a satchel. If I could match
that patent
leather red with a ceiling
that used to be
a row
of chairs, I wouldn’t want
to reminisce
about those lacquer days.
Strong evidence
of tobacco use on the corner
outside the library. I should
know. Have checked out
for five all but one
year of my life
in this town. A red
Q on this book
cover is no longer
a question. Quality days
begin to stack up
against an invisible wall. Collections
have their place. I don’t
miss the smoke.
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.
The mayor declares no
more skyways. Till what? We learn how
to design the perfect
compass for indoor air? Now that I know
my way around up there after two
decades, I will not give
them up. A hybrid
walk might spread in all directions
on all levels—inside and out.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 