Boston:
I loved you first,
no terror can break you.
Boston—where my parents first met—
prevails.
Day Poems
How To Be Second Choice
Grace. A chess game indoors
could have been outside in
spring snow if it was
a bigger place
with more pocket parks. But here
everything stays
insulated. A punk jabbing
at the inside mechanisms
of my mind. In a dream,
the old New York employer
has all but shutdown. An empire
of books gets streamlined. Everyone
has moved
on. Even those who haven’t
when I wake will be gone.
Twisted Anniversary
Twenty years ago when she thought she would live
forever, she tried to cut it
short. Twenty years later, she’s doing all she can
to preserve each daily miracle. Joy
Division was rattling in
her head: “She’s Lost Control.” Who knows what
the Roadhouse jukebox
was pumping out. It was Neil Young who awakened her
with a “Harvest Moon”
in April to a morning she didn’t know she would want
to know. Some dates are best
forgotten. She’s the lucky one who gets to remember the long play.
Who Says April Is
Somewhere someone
decided this is our
month. As if all
the told slant
truths might bloom
simultaneously in a city
garden bed. Everyone’s talking
about getting wisdom
teeth pulled
today. From some non-euphoric
recall, I see nothing
poetic about it
save the prescription
for codeine
I couldn’t afford
to get filled.
Sun’s First Suspension
The morning’s unexcused
absence can lead to another,
then another, and
still another till
truncated days are
all we get. Our children’s
children will dream of civil
dawn the way we long
for a pristine shoreline, pine
forest, subway wall, guitar
riff. Saudade
for time of day
as much as for a place
or soul we never knew
renders us
human all over again.
A Poet Prepares for Her First AWP Conference
Relief that she is not
attending the regional pest
management conference
here in town
is not enough.
Sipping black coffee
in a refurbished hotel lobby
four blocks
from her apartment
is not enough.
Scribbling another reminder
note on a Post-It
not to forget PJs,
business cards, mouth wash
could be. Checking
the progress of that snowstorm
hovering over Boston
every 15 minutes
not likely. Exhaling
absolutely without question.
Interception
Your secret
is safe
with me. You
are not
safe with more
secrets.
Six Months
Another one
passes. Halfway around
without him. The heat
of late summer
was closing in
that morning. Now late winter
hints at thaw
before another day
closes just a little bit
later than the one
before. Still not used to it.
Startled and chilled
by moments of awareness
of nonexistence. Or,
is that it? He exists
in the route I take
each morning to work,
in the choices
I make when I am truly
awake, in the words
I retrieve—sometimes with excruciating
slowness. In the messages
I hear in that February
wind. He’s there
in the backdrop
to an overripe
moon. There propelling
me to imagine the next
full one. Then again—
an infinitesimal speck,
how can I know? And that’s it—
the spiritual collision
he would have me lean into.
Sixties Formation
“Rocket Man” is another one. “Sugar,
Sugar” “Hey Jude.” “Can’t
Get No Satisfaction”
“Georgy Girl.” More
than a personal history
lesson. More than nostalgia. This is
the indescribable
sound print
that tracks the birth
of my soul.
No Junk Landing
A burning
to the eyes, a jet’s piercing roar
and clear vapor trail
overhead jumpstart the day.
No one walks
on those snow-covered trails
in the city park
on a morning like this. An asteroid
streaks by on schedule, a meteor
blasts in uninvited. Watch
those extremities—exposed out
there, or accidentally brushed
against a radiator
working so hard.
And sometimes
there’s no safe passage
over ice.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 