No one leaves
the hoist up for her. No
need. She’s not going to
go
into the whole 300 versus
500 feet. Just keep back. On foot
it’s easy to forget the doom
to decay eager. This rhythm is the same one
she picked up near the Rock River
before she could speak.
And those rocks we would slip
off come high
tide. Your face drawn
with a cane in all that blown
sand. The painful
part is not being able
to carry things.
Analepsis is my burden, prolepsis
yours. Together,
we drop
to our knees
relieved to have this cold
opening to ourselves.
The bees are dying. No one knows
why. Saying hello as you roll
away does nothing
to clear away this rain.
The beekeeper rarely speaks,
his voice cracks from disuse. I resist
filling in his blanks. They are not
blank, but beveled
with premonition. Lightning
could destroy the hive. But that’s not it.
And if it was, you still wouldn’t stand still
long enough to take anyone’s advice.
She collects all the fear
she has gathered for 21 years,
puts it in a jar and seals it tight,
drops the jar into
the drink. Without it,
her days begin to count.
I need you tonight,
moon, am collapsing in
the curve of you. I found
a wrench in the street this morning.
I need you tonight,
throwing tools
(I am afraid to use)
before me, am reaching to cradle
my own knees—
bruised by misjudgment.
These arms, these fingers are too
stiff. Right tighter, left
looser, bolts land
arranged in a pattern. I found
it could help
reckon through clouds,
stars aligning behind.
When I look at the moon, I believe in God
in phases. Because he who rapes the body no
longer rapes thought, I said, “no.”
When I look at the moon, I believe in God in pauses
revealed in shadow giving consent to light.
When a new moon gives back
the whole sky, I’ll begin
to believe this body is mine.
I am the scriptio
inferior, I am
the underwriting
of myself. I cannot
wash away the dialogues
I have had with amnesia,
cannot forget
my desire to be seen.
With each alcoholic
palimpsest, I became
powder, irretrievable,
invisible
to myself. With each
reprieve, I am making
a record of what my disease
did not erase.
She will answer her own question
with another question wrapped
inside a brilliantly clean
pattern of reds, blacks, gold—
a pattern bleeding into another,
into another without end. “Will I
make it to the roadhouse
without dying tonight?” Spotting
an unraveling of the veil
of delusion, she picks beautiful silk
threads off the floor
where in desperation she knelt
to ask for help. Another weave in deep
ocean blue overlays the red,
the black, the gold. Indefinite articles
worn loosely over shoulders
could warm Caryatid to release
her boulder, to recover
her posture without a pose.
And so she does make it
to the roadhouse tonight
for a cup of hot black
light roast breathing
free—divine for now.
Lost and found
art lost
and found art is
the moment
I mark
with this pen.
Frogs dart across moist areas of a tended path,
grasshoppers take the dry,
beavers’ work evident by the dead
trees in a still pond—no sign
of the maker, everywhere there.
I step into another woman’s childhood landscape
and can smell my own
in this boathouse on a lake. Fresh
or salt water, it floats. Nothing gets trapped underfoot.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 