I sit beneath a painting of Kerouac
in thick shades
of gray and try to digest
the fact that I am older than he
will ever be. I should
be so privileged to pass
Emily and Virginia. I’ll prefer
mine lilac and thinner
than the rim of ice
hovering along these northern banks
of the Mississippi. This January
moves unnaturally fast.
A violent thought drives
him to grab
the nearest railing
so he won’t spill
himself onto the deck.
The calm water
is a song
he wrote before he knew
how to speak
to women with mouths
like hers. White knuckles
and wet wrists, he remembers
now. Oh, that’s right.
Saturday morning ginger
essence on my skin
to keep me eager
without doom, a cat scratch
scar on my ring finger
print that won’t quite heal
is no stigmata.
A tiny smear
of blood on paper
doesn’t speak
in any tongues. Aroma
therapy is no joke.
Do they remember
months after the solstice? Who
will speak
for you tomorrow morning
before strange fog
clears? Tonight this parade
answers no questions.
Get on the bus—then get off.
Plan aborted, a walk
in a circle is
one answer. No one else picks
through racks in a dress
boutique to break
her stride. Six degrees
not of separation, but of burn
then numbness
if she waits
for another one too long.
If I had a drawer
filled with aging apples
to sniff, I might not need
to repeat the word
rosewater
into the stagnant air.
Might comprehend narrative
in its raw state.
November mist nowhere
near any Big Sur perch.
This morning might give
way to snow or
nothing at all. I might give
in to references
to vertical transport or
stand on the ground
floor and celebrate
these wooden stairs.
Everyone’s talking
about the dirt
she ate. About the myths
she created to defy
those creation myths
she read in a fog.
People return to the bluff
seeking some redemption
in a poet’s stare.
What’s she hiding—what was that
she just spit out
onto the stained
concrete floor?
Home is in the pronunciation.
In this silence,
I belong nowhere—everywhere
could be my first word.
I borrowed a list of resentments
from a stranger
on a train. I’m not even pissed
at you for dying. Maybe later.
I was once—angry—when
you accused me
of starving
myself. But even that rocking
is an empty dinghy
beneath the old drawbridge—
no sail, no wind.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 