My own private alley
is not for parking
ideas unless they’re going
in reverse. New words
to my ears tumble
from your mouth
to tempt me to pretend
to fall from an open window.
You who won’t trespass
against me—will you
catch me on the way
down?
Will the ivy on brick
tie us together
for a moment? I close
all blinds on the east side.
Take off
the wheels,
hang the amputated
boards on a café wall.
If you don’t want
opinions, don’t go
on display. Rent the piano
in the public library
for an hour so you can play
inside a sealed chamber. Or,
collect yourself
into a scream
that will skate outside.
Incidental instrumentation
is a snare drum dance
on a low stage. The frequency gentle
and occasional, the result
a steady and uninhibited linger. Blueprints
to buildings sometimes reveal their windows
upside down, sometimes superimposed
lines pull a stillness over the implied glass.
Merce Cunningham paused on film
in three movements, the music plays
without instrumentation—Cage composed
and decomposing. The lyricism of the moment
collides with an unrecoverable
past. Staggered evidence of feet once buried
in sand, and I’m six and not concerned
with the inevitability
of high tide.
Balcony scars on the side
of a house haunt
us—another Verona,
another serenade, another exit
into perfect darkness.
A guitar pick moon
offers us the night. We take it
string by wave by bits
of breath easing close.
You make my hair curl
around a yearning
for a straighter path. Deep beneath
the streets you go
to rescue these roots
from those utilities. The rinse is never
final. Four men in suits cross over
without looking
in both our directions. They don’t
believe in rain. You aren’t to be believed—
weather becomes an emotion
under your care.
To cash in
a past, pick
a year—1992,
better yet 1991—
would be too easy.
I’m done being
easy. Narratives
wrap around words
compressed. A loose loop
of letters with clear beginning,
middle,
end would be a legible expose
yourself delivery
method. But
it’s what gets packed in
so tightly—one lover’s lip
smashed against another’s ear.
Turns out, boys tell secrets too.
Some days she’s not willing
to dig deep
below a scratched surface
truth. Some days she just wants
to see her
reflection crack
and walk on. Some
other days that become nights
she would rather go
blind than acknowledge
the visions trapping
her heart inside an under river
tunnel. This could be
one of those.
Amy Nash will be reading her poetry at the Fireroast Mountain Cafe in South Minneapolis on Saturday, April 3rd, at 7 pm. The address and website are:
Fireroast Mountain Cafe
3800 37th Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55406
www.fireroastmountaincafe.com
Counts backwards
till she can’t breathe. She pretends
a message will appear
at zero
on a screen addressed to her
from you. A different kind
of marring,
you’ll be asking for it.
Hard on the lips,
her pressure increases
as your resistance
goes down. Exaltation.
No photos ever of me
in Brooklyn. Some in Queens—
an Astoria fourplex with unfinished
hardwood floors. Manhattan all over beginning
inside the helm of the Flat Iron.
The Bronx north of 232nd Street indoors
and out. Even one on Staten Island before
dashing across the Verrazano Narrows
Bridge. Where did they go? I know
they were taken
by the tiny broken locks
in my soul.
But I can’t end
on that—I’ll be the one
stealing, not having earned
the right to mention it—
the soul that is.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 