Again she asks
the water
droplet on a corner
table who owns
the land. Who
owns you—precious
liquid, tiny reservoir
of truth? What’s
an embarrassment
of papers mean
in a flood? Or,
incurable thirst? I’ll mop
you up—but
I won’t buy.
Day Poems
Devil’s Bridge Shoal
Clay on their faces—
naked gestures
before jumping
off those cliffs
into the wild
wash. It’s not
over till our giant
returns for his rock
collection and pipe.
Cracking Up
Oceans rise
by twelve feet
by when. How to buy
time and use it
to buy more. Who
is selling those years,
months, days, hours. Minutes
available on eBay
to the highest
bidder. Too late. Childhood
memories of a shoreline
cottage won’t wash away
with its stoop. Is it really
too late?
Isometrics
Some days all I can feel is
my father’s handshake. Called a vise
grip by more than one old
beau. An addiction to finger exercises
he did while running
every morning. They kept my own
hands occupied
in the early weeks after quitting
those smokes
he hated viciously. And I still practice
them now that I have returned
to the road and to fight
back tears. No matter how many sets
I do, memories are all that’s left. And the way
they left his mind
too soon.
Non Sequitur Invasion
Born between
the UK and US
release of the Beatles’
“I Want
to Hold Your Hand,”
she never knew
life before rock
‘n’ roll. Buds on a few
trees—a week
of rain has a disturbed
purpose. She has been
loved this early
in May. Parades with gigantic
puppets have not
been a good sign. Or,
no message to read
at all. It won’t
storm tomorrow.
3D
If I could
print you
a new hand
to hold
mine, I would
still walk alone
up this hill. You would
rescue a baby
squirrel falling
from bare branches,
and the day
would become salvage.
Entrain
The invisible
line between
walking and running
talking and singing
touching and pressuring
scent and stench
breeze and gust
sleeping and dying
to live is
lift off.
Reading Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing in a Bar
In Lagos, Portugal.
She thought she was so
adult to be
drinking alone
with Ms. Sarton
still alive in a foreign country.
28 years ago
this August, she hasn’t been
back. No longer goes
to bars with or without
May. There was a bartender
in that story—but not this poem.
Cure for Cruel April 9th
Here is
my note to self
to remember to soar
just a little more gracefully
each day.
Risking Behavior
Dare to
schedule a massage,
board a train
headed east, look
up while passing beneath
a balcony, remember
who she hitchhiked with
the last time
she did it—dared
to be
so young, that is.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 