Day Poems

Bridge

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For MJN crossing beneath,
for NYC connecting across,
for The Brooklyn Bridge rescue working destiny

Advance your vantage
point, collapse
your facade of steel,
your gutted concrete floor.

Collide your bridge maker
with mine, collage your hand over mouth
with my eyes shut,
vocal chords in strangulation—

a scream
a void

to coalesce to convalesce
on one promenade
of material unidentifiable yet.
Coordinate the crossing—

bare feet
dust
ash caked faces

no veil could protect,
suits meaningless, ties undone
till they become arms swaying.
A human chain

of events. A human
behavior changing—
never
no way
when
now.

They designed bridges
to be passageways.
Make them good
to get no further

than this. It is still where it has been,
the destination stands
between these pedestrian elevating towers
still here.

Sidewalks of New York Speak

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You wander through
your grandmother’s New England garden
in red sneakers with an old red
wooden toy organ
strapped around your neck.
Turning the crank, humming along:

East Side, West Side,
all around the town.

Before you can read
you’ll see the writing
in blue chalk at your feet.

Come find me.
Memorize that map
of my guts.
Know me better
than your own hands
that dig into pockets

in search of
an old subway token
with a tiny Y cut out.

Never learn
to drive. Love my one-way streets
and two-way sidewalks forever instead.

The Leaving

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Walk just a few more blocks
before it’s time
to catch the shuttle
off the island
into Queens
to discover new reasons
to gripe about LaGuardia.

Just one more block
with Greta Garbo
where I can sing of solitude
deep inside the crowd—

compressed /
language /
poetry /
New /
York /
City

Proteus (Old Man of the Sea)

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“I love my free spirit.
I trust my creative power.
I generate the wind beneath my wings
and enjoy the journey.”
—Michael Nash Mantra

Since you died three years ago,
whenever I fly
I find you
in the clouds.

On this date, you have come to me
as a wave breaking
against a jetty
in Oak Bluffs,

as a young fox
darting along a beach road
on the farthest tip
of Cape Cod at dawn.

As I board another plane
bound for New York,
I wonder what form
you’ll assume this year.

Gulls don’t
get so high.

You might wait till I land.
The wrong season
for a Sandy Hook harbor seal
haul out.

No, something will soar
overhead if I can be
patient, still
as the Palisades.

Anything with wings, Dad.
Show me anything with wings.

Why

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because
Minnesota boys

the first cool night in late August
and a blanket
pulled off the shelf

because
the Mississippi
any time of day or season

because
First Avenue
with its ceiling replaced

because
winter windchill
bragging rights

the first warm day
in April
maybe it’s May maybe June

because
Loring Park
Armajani’s Irene Hixon Whitney Bridge

John Ashbery
in both directions

because
sculptures by
Noguchi Shea Serra

Lake of the Isles
Cedar Lake Trail
Minnehaha Creek

because
the C.C.

because
Minnesota boys

Nobody’s Sitting in Your Chair

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I want you
to read me
all the time

even in the bath
even in your sleep

I’m so vain
I want you to want to believe
each poem is about you

they are about everyone
and no one

till the reader
enters the room
surveys the tile floor

wooden tables
plaster walls
painted cautionary yellow

chooses a chair
sits down
becomes part of the scene

an empty folding one
blocks an open window

its half-drawn shade
flaps in the breeze

In Search of the Lost Art

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“A writer is essentially a spy. . . .
With used furniture he makes a tree.
A writer is essentially a crook.”
—Anne Sexton (from “The Black Art”)

When we were lovers,
I didn’t know how
to wear lipstick.

When we were lovers,
we built and broke
our own code.

The Def Leppard
drummer still
used both hands.

Orwell’s novel
did not come true.
Ronald Reagan was president.

When we were lovers,
I had all the licenses
I would ever get—none.

When we were lovers,
you were thick,
I was snug.

We had no world
wide web. MTV was born.
Mark Zuckerberg, not yet.

We didn’t need replacements. Heard music
beneath stars, discovered our bodies’ perfect cadence
in a station wagon way-back.

When we were lovers,
house alarms went off
spontaneously.

When we were lovers,
eating ice cream was erotic—
didn’t give me stomach aches yet.

One bath almost shared.
One shower together
after three years of waiting.

We got locked inside a courtyard
outside a Brooklyn brownstone
and didn’t care.

When we were lovers,
a waft of ghostly smoke
occasionally hovered over the river.

When we were lovers,
we fought as intensely.
Almost.

We could reignite
as soon as one of us got off a plane
at the airport gate.

Thornton Pool had a high dive.
I belly-flopped off it.
You watched a swan glide down.

When we were lovers,
you would drive me home
at daybreak.

When we were lovers,
time stood still
but not for long enough.

When we were lovers,
we couldn’t keep our hands
off each other.

One letter got lost
for months.
Our timing was off.

Before 1950, making love
to one another could happen
through the mail without touching.

When we were lovers, we didn’t know how
three decades later we might submerge ourselves
in deep water to resuscitate the lost art.

Summer ’81

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Arambler's avatarNight & Day Poems of Amy Nash

Engine shut off,
brakes released.

We rolled the teardrop window car
down the driveway
like spies.

Curfew or no curfew,
we discovered our own
way to decode the night.

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Washington Avenue South

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Arambler's avatarNight & Day Poems of Amy Nash

Before the street made sense, became a boulevard
with flower beds and urban strength
trees, she entered 

the roadhouse to seep
into wood. To be
the end. It is 

gone. She is
not. Up the long block—a lengthening
stretch of cars, do not 

honk, go fast, poets cling
to their voices under beams
compressing breath and scars.

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Let Us Go Then

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Objects:
Our dead friend
moves our limbs, our mouths,
our lids, our hearts.
Marionettes and
so much more.
He releases our strings
simultaneously. Knows
it’s futile to fight the laws
of physics
even from his side.

Subjects:
Despite the forecast,
rain begins to slap
awake an etherized sky.
Our skin protects
those young spies
dressed in our eyes
testing our voices
as they prepare
to go.

You and I—
none of anyone else’s
goddamn business.
Never mind the mermaids,
we’ve gotten so far
beyond the bath.

Note: partially inspired by T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”