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.
Day Poems
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.
Prince Sings
Sometimes it snows
in April. Sometimes
it’s too soon
for any new
life to begin. Better
before anything stirs. Better
to be an addendum
to winter than a mutation
to spring.
Accidental Beauty
If you can’t think
of anything, put the cap back
on. Don’t let it dry up
for good. To be
too poised is poison. That opening
in the woods
where you veered
off the path is the true
hinge to it. Don’t forget
to swing without occasion.
This Year’s Color
Radiant orchid
throughout each season—even now
when rain can’t quite
wash away the most hardened dirty
snow. Somewhere the temperature
drops just enough at night
before a warming settles in. Somewhere
someone sings,
“California Dreamin’”
to coax things along. Someone
somewhere is still searching
for a word that rhymes
with orange.
First Day
Freezing
fog come morning.
Then unbelievable
sunshine shakes the river and falls
awake.
My New England Roots
Are showing. I am not afraid
of gray
days and midnight blue
evenings—the Atlantic
a skipping stone’s
throw away
at all times. Barnacles
hosted in the seams
of everything. Four distinct
seasons, each with its own
drama—highs and lows.
Connecticut and Massachusetts
call me home at the least
expected moments. I don’t
always answer—but can’t
camouflage my soul’s saturation for long.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 