What tricks
will the day play
on her, she wonders. And she wonders
which former
lover will seep
through the retaining wall. One from here
or one from back east.
Those two in California
were not always so far west. She’s not
a humorless bitch.
She repeats. Not a humorless
bitch—just because she’s not
laughing with the day.
This is the spot—the table
beside the escalator. Orange metal
railings mean nothing
to each stranger who steps aboard. She counts
the walkers—only one
so far. Stand
on the right, pass
on the left. She learned it
in the London Tube,
rediscovered it in the NYC Subway,
won’t let it go above
or below grade. It never made it
to this side of the Mississippi. Movement
along these banks depends—
on everything, even
that orange rail.
She vows not
to fear the rain
that may come. Words
she may exchange
with a stranger, banker,
barista, vintage dress
shop owner. The best
road to ending
sentences. Answering
the phone. She has said
no vows
before—fears
it may be too late.
To believe a city’s breathing
can awaken prairie grass,
to know a river
did not freeze
behind her, to inspect
high clouds in search
of an old lover’s
face (any one would do)
is to be
more than a witness
to these strange days,
stranger nights.
More than the foot I broke
outside Van Cortlandt Park.
And the friends
and family and
strangers who visited
me up there. To be at the end
of the line
at night and first
on the train the next
morning, to be safely wedged
northwest, to be rich
in two hours’ worth of rhythmic
thought each day is
to be more than the sum
of 160 steps up.
I’m no longer
a Manhattan with rye,
the suit with one sugar cube, or
the skirt
garnished with a cherry. I’m no longer
eligible to mix
it up on the East Coast. But
visits taken black
filled to the brim
still carry me home.
Digital monsters
with moustaches, power
outlets in the café
floor, the names
we never got
right—that door
ought to be
locked. Or, then, not
at all. Why did this
way get invented
if no one is
allowed to go
this way? That
would be called
the last
exits to exist.
No recipes for Pinterest. No nails
for the resurrection
of Washington
Avenue. It’s really a boulevard
without the reach
of Broadway. I remember
the way I lived
in the Bronx. That elevated #1
line dropped shadows,
then hints, of the plains
I might choose to cross
before decades erased
my interest
in pins and collage.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 