We didn’t know. How
could we? I could be
in the midst
of another halo
shadow over hours
untold. Could be
at the nudge
and pause as they ripen
inside a green house
beneath a green roof.
His lips could be
ready, and I would be unpainted
and preoccupied
with this spot on a Formica
table top. An imaginary island
in an imaginary sea.
That between hotel rooms
doorway, loop hole
in my story, rarely used,
opens questions
to the last fading
balcony light. Is it
one door or two? If one,
does it lock
on both sides? If on
only one, who chooses who
gets to hold the key?
Would it be you? Would it be me?
Would it be the concierge
deciding if it’s a good night
for matchmaking? Do we fit
his image of accidental lovers,
or would he be wicked
in his plotting domestic traveling
disturbance? Or perhaps he just wants
to see what could happen—lets it drop
into the can
without remembering if
he secured us in or out,
or not at all.
To eat lemon
cake with a spoon,
to dream of walking on
that bridge with you
(not beneath it
in a tourist vessel),
to be so confident
grace will follow
is to be willing to go
where there are no
sidewalks and still reach
the hotel before it rains.
To choose to stay
there instead of in
a house, to fantasize
about local lobbies
and dimly lit bars
encased in translucent glass
and steel where the coffee is
strong and black, to imagine
the sound of an elevator door
opening at my feet
is the closest I come to memorizing
the music woven
into the fabric of this chaise
we might share.
Multiple star, high
end hotel with its opaque
smoke and mirror
windows and dark
corridor leading to a bar
she just wants to see
to steal a setting
for her make-believe
life. She doesn’t wear
her glasses. She won’t
go inside. Her nearsightedness
leaves her
outside conjuring
up sidewalk
impressions instead.
I must learn how
to describe each tiny movement
from solid green to a yellow brushed with red breaking
into orange without
these blocks of language. I turn up the volume
when this instrumental plays—sweet
guitar sings vocal lines, the human voice
at rest. Seductively rich
baritone be still
for these moments, while I work
on my lesson, a thing I am to practice
with my soul—
without a bridge.
The first in the city
to have electric
lights. A hinge
to flex downtown
lane over lane flung
onto outdoor sculpture
with a cherry on
top. I’m at the bottom
of this brown hill
imagining a summer
evening: Civil
twilight and a great blue
heron—my current hero’s
plugging in
near the Dandelion
Fountain. He wouldn’t get too close
to the water. Weeds are wild
flowers with a bad reputation.
The way I build up,
demolish, recreate
my heroes, mine could be worse.
Sometimes at civil dusk I look
at this grid of six
repetitions of your half-opened
mouth and most
of your face and believe
I have lost
perspective.
It’s not a stone
against this pane.
It’s that blade hitting it—
dirt of my life
dripping down.
One day this unstable
wooden chair will collapse.
It may be she got her day
dream come true too early.
Can she be
satisfied with these ones
she unpacks now
remaining where they began—
balanced on the teetering
legs of her imagination? One
voice is terrible
beauty enough. Or, grace is
wood turning
to wings at the last
possible moment.
She cannot know the words
she may shout
in her sleep—a sleep
she journeys to alone,
whether or not
she is alone in a room.
Her cat won’t tell. She can
make it up: “Please don’t stop
singing.” Or: “I’m falling
free, please don’t
catch me.” Or: “No, no, no.”
Or: “Yes, yes, yes.” Or,
she can let it be
a mystery, the cat
slipping into another room,
her arms resting overhead.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 