Is all that’s left
of the Let It Be Records sign.
She’ll walk on shoulders
of highways—the ones singers warn
might not be too safe. He’ll go back
to Rockville
when all’s said
and done. CT not MD. She can’t go back
to a town
that was never hers. Saudade
can’t be measured
in miles or years left abandoned on corners.
Is where she leaves
her messages. There was a to him
till there wasn’t.
She can’t write
away the ache of witnessing
a parent slowly evaporate
on life’s bark
while still being here. Only a temporary
empty, she’ll be retrieved—
dents banged out,
recycled, refilled.
Then she’ll rest in those concave
curves and remember the name
he gave her might mean Ash.
1. I realize I’m the only one
wearing a hat on the walk to work.
2. Finally find the $100 math error
in a fee proposal.
3. Wonder about green
roofs in strong winds.
4. Wait for a pedestrian
foothold in rush hour traffic.
5. I drift through skyways
with everything on mute.
6. Don’t buy a banana
that’s too yellow.
7. Contemplate the green
banana that never ripened.
8. Notice cufflinks
on sleeves for the first time.
9. I’m relieved to be
ring free.
10. Ready to go home.
Poised to take on
another breathing
spell, I brush someone
else’s powdered
sugar off the orange
table. If I ran
into him now
in this rain, who
would ignore whom
first? Offer umbrella
shelter—a cheek
to kiss? He used to curse
me for answering
my own questions. Who’s
left? I am, I say.
She’s going to write another
poem about how she almost
moved
to Georgia. And she’ll use
move
at least two more times
before finding relief
for a blistered left
thumb. This burn—an accident.
An embarrassment.
An encounter
with a flat
iron nothing like the wedge
of a building where her former
self began.
Then the move
back
to Connecticut, then the big one
to Minneapolis—not Athens.
One music town
or another
moves
ahead. A northern girl
in the end—so far.
She walks the long way
around building façade
restoration scaffolding.
In this wind and light
rain, weather is no longer
superstition. Weather is
serendipity. When libraries become
verbs, new subjects will appear and succumb
to a state of being
searchable. And she’ll brush
the leftover syllables
into the gutter
for another Friday.
A disembodied voice
goes silent
while the body flees
to another scene. Another season
to test out microphones
for the soul. No one calls
for the ombudsman
in this crowd. Every form
and structure gets
a say. What gets
heard is news
for another night.
Whoever can write
about home on demand
has never been challenged
by the prospect of losing
its meaning. The place where I was born
holds no promise
of belonging. Have seen it
once since I left at six
months. Where I met my husband
means nothing because
there is no husband. If home is
where you hang
yourself, I can almost call this town
on the Mississippi the place. Almost. But
what about The City? The Atlantic Ocean?
It could be where you build
your own Take No Heroes Hotel
from some abandoned structure
with former lives peaking through.
AKA is not FKA is
not who she thinks
you are. How to feel saudade
about the name
of a place, not the place
itself. She wonders if
we are what we eat
on the way to choosing the one
that will stick.
That ballerina on the back
of a bus, inventions
to relieve
sinus pressure before
all the trees
bloom. For the one who walks
alongside—wild
flowers mostly. And rants the color
of wisteria
early on.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 