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.
Your secret
is safe
with me. You
are not
safe with more
secrets.
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.
“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.
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.
On a cocktail
napkin to be recited
in a pub
on Valentine’s Day. Never
drank whiskey when
I still drank. Never
understood romance
when I still believed
it could happen
to me. Never stopped
believing it could
happen to you.
A smart phone huddle
awakens that skyway
bridge between the bank
and liquor store. Disorientation
comes from peering
at street level. Wine
tasting is on
another night.
“Take a break
from Face
Book to face
the forgotten beauty
of a real book.”
Where did I
read that?
I am New England dirt,
the taste of beets out back.
I am not brownstone—
not urban by birth. I am
still in quarry depth,
the scent of cars rusting beneath.
I am not ocher—not red
iron ore impure. I am sipping
fresh water from a claw-foot tub
turned spring, overflowing
to Bone Lake at dusk
and warm. But I am not
the moon to be collected.
I am not forty jokes memorized—
not working a room,
timing accent and plot. I am
ready to mark this laughter
the colors of a flower bed
against brick. I am the line
drawn purple—blues and reds
of a road map
preparing to fold everything
I am
(except magnetic north) in place.
Half the Sunday
paper on Saturday.
I would leave the business
section folded, unread
for him. All that caution—
still he preferred
The Wall Street Journal. Grilled
salmon with his secret
marinade sauce
in the years
I ate fish. It always came down
to The Run or The Walk—
capital T, capital R, or
capital T, capital W.
The Asbury Park
boardwalk. Trails
in South Mountain Reservation.
The Delaware
and Raritan
Canal State Park.
The Mississippi
riverfront overlooking
Saint Anthony Falls.
The Kinsale
Old Head before
it became a golf course.
From those Kokomo
rural routes to
a nursing home hallway,
so many other roads, trails,
paths, passageways
to his life. If I could begin
today, how many days,
months, years would it take
to map it all? If I can recall
a path a day, I might
make a little bit of progress
the way he wished.
No one walks
this way
forever. No one waits
for the call
without some skin
crawling in
the dark. No one wishes
this on you—save
perhaps you. Save
yourself from
yourself. I would walk
that far to meet you
in the middle
where odysseys are
just stories we read
before switching off the light.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 