Footbridges are her chalkboard.
She erases the night
with her tongue. No spitting
allowed. If she could write
like you used to
speak, she’d drop
all R’s
(reading, ‘riting, ‘rithmetic)
to make room for one long
queue that snakes
along those unmarred banks.
But she just can’t do it.
She wears
no mask to honor
those dead—in her own
voice. A preoccupation
with cemeteries may end
tomorrow. Or her identity
will be revealed
by other naked means.
To run a marathon, write
a book, publish
a poem, make
love to a woman, join
a commune, find
a home, see the world,
to call it a day
is to spin my own
epitaph on a 3 x 5
note card, index
my breath, become obsessed
with chasing my own
past, is to take
a long ride on a train.
You say let’s celebrate
Columbo—not
Columbus—Day. I’ll dirty
my trench coat
for you. I could be a detective
the way I’ve perfected the stalk
without disturbing
anyone, especially the dead. I yell
at those people
who climb on the red metal
sculpture in a public garden.
It’s not a slide. I’m no grave
digger. Archaeologist—never. Who
gets to say what’s sacred or how
to achieve closure? It’s time to give
those bones a rest.
Meanwhile there’s this dream
I have of you—
a card game, a maze
of corridors, fingers hidden
behind torsos, a borrowed
kiss, another kind
of numbers played here—
and the song? I wake too soon.
I come from the other
end of autumn
where black and white
frames get mistaken
for winter. But my mother birthed four
children—one for each season
in order. My brother came last
to claim the legitimate
snow and ice. I was born to bury
leaf memory in premature white—a virgin
covering before car exhaust
gets to it.
Time to read
a chapter in a novel, watch
a movie start
to finish (without interruption), listen
to anything but
songs from Nirvana’s Nevermind
on the radio. Time to tuck
the tributes, altered memories, grief between
pages of a journal
you’ve been rereading
(without interruption) for two months. Bible
studies will be held
on Sunday evenings in your favorite coffee house.
(He’ll still be dead.)
Those girls will continue to grow.
Sometimes leaves will turn and fall
at the same time.
If only you had come down
that warm June night.
To rescue her
from his leaping kiss, from
herself—you might have deflected
the obsession
from his visage
to yours. Might have cherished
her beautiful catastrophe
longer than
a summer’s breath. River
to lake—lake to river
bed, you might have left her
another widowed
word in the end.
Rabbits and voles whip
across a city sidewalk. Still,
the leaves don’t fall.
I can almost feel the heat
of your tobacco-flavored breath
against my cheek
as you whisper ghostly
nothings in my ear. Still,
the leaves don’t fall.
“There’s no art
To find the mind’s construction in the face.”
—William Shakespeare, Macbeth
Black and white is better.
A chance to sing
with the prettiest
soccer player he ever coached is best
between the pipes. The choral
room fades into a late-night debate
séance. A rude awakening—you
were no challenge to her
even before she got so lonely
on her mountain. Did you get your kiss
beside a pile of broken
chairs? Behind another brick
in the wall? Bonfire flames
and umbrella silhouettes
become an unfinished
symphony. The egg
drop comes before those fish drawn
on their foreheads in crayon. You make me long
for the artless construction
of your face.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 