These immobilization fees
don’t cover what she does
with her left wrist. Flicks serifs
off letters the way she used to release
ashes from her smokes, the way
I might dismiss her
without understanding what she might be
building in that empty lot. April snow lasts
only so long—then she’ll write this off too.
Her nervous system’s high
whine, his circulating blood a low
hum, their silence won’t come
the way they imagined
under these rafters at dawn. This return
to audible reality—a compulsion
to let the breath be known—weighs
on her as she steps off the back
porch. Onto pavers seeping
mud, her feet adjust to the sway. The rain
did not stop, but that wasn’t it.
Her disappearance completes
the arc of narrative
in light better than words.
As he disappears
behind a mountain, she sighs
a sigh weighted in sadness,
in regret, in relief. As she remembers
each step they took
toward the bluff before night blanketed them
in desire, she sees a gull
on the rock she had reserved
for them. No longer a them,
she turns her back
to the ocean—no longer in need
of more salt.
Once was a smoker
who no more. Planes take off
over her head, so she won’t
sleep, so she’ll be repulsed
by the smell of her former
self seeping through the door
clearance. In the retelling,
this story grows wings, extra
limbs, Medusa locks (larger than
life only through a water
glass magnifier), drawn-out pauses
over the city map she secretly reads
in the palm of her left
hand. Second or third wife, some of us
lose track in the translation
that gets written down
by mistake. This is no Torah
rich in color and lineage.
That story is not hers.
Multistory projections crowd her
view of the river before bottom
dwellers came to divide
it into chapters—a beginning,
middle, end, begin again
in layers over the only naturally occurring
falls. A narrative—perpetual
and more powerful than a light
show or bank swoons—
won’t stick. Who needs
a plot so thick.
A weaver dreams of LED lights laced
into her cloak for a nighttime ride. I prefer
my draping fibers unadorned over
my shoulders, or at the bottom
of my cup first thing
in the morning. I do not deny
her those visions—my own constellations
glimmer in the banjo
of that Otis Taylor song
playing after dark.
A dream with its middle erased, a phantom
limb—it unnerves her come that moment morning
coffee kicks in. Rain
that doesn’t happen
gets stored in those places no one mentions
in status reports. She’s about
to speak—her own laughter burns
her cheeks. Out of practice, she clears her throat
in a hurry. Still, lyric over
narrative breaks free.
A companion piece to vintage
postcard greetings, she says hello
to the big river. A swelling
to the brim, this year’s crest still won’t surpass
her expectations—no spilling over downtown
banks. On her ridge
a mile west, she pays
better attention to new lakes
as they make appearances
at street corners. She knows a flood
is no mean fate. Sand bag
preparedness may suffice
here. Oceans away atrocity
continues to rise beyond
calculation and mashed-up time.
Mowrey’s Tavern, Cleveland House,
Dunham House, Forest City House, Hotel Cleveland,
Sheraton Cleveland, Stouffer’s Inn
on the Square,
Stouffer Tower City Plaza Hotel, Renaissance
Cleveland Hotel at Tower City
Center. Too many names spill
over her memory of Public Square, the Terminal
Tower when it was still terminal,
but nothing gives. She forgot
to take notes during the seduction.
Here it is—the reason
she built the Take No Heroes Hotel.
The speakers are silent
and scratched in their encasements.
Videographers form a line
around your ruin. This is no time
for an apocalypse. These shadows
tower over notes someone left
on the ground. To be decoded
or ghettoized as graffiti, you
tell on the trees for neglecting
us—all of us who still want
to touch edges as we listen
to the ache.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 