to ask:
Who are you
writing about?
All of you,
especially you
over there,
but not you.
I will never forget
the girl who screamed
from the front pew
in a crowded church:
My socks are wet!
The exclamation bounced
around the walls
and high ceiling
till it landed
on an old lady’s
tulle-covered hat.
I swear it wasn’t me.
Was it you?
come meet your poet
who rewrites you
each night
after the local news
let’s the new version cure
for 24 hours
or millennia
no slow death before noon
no archangels
that trumpet rhymes
they serve coffee in stained
glass ruby goblets
no handles
the world goes Manx
for a day
or three hundred
ways to skin
your knee
in a gravel pit
the poem
not the poet
controls the moon
the tides
and women
that’s another story
“Words are impoverishments, splendid poverties.”
—Charles Simic (from “Reading Philosophy at Night,” The Life of Images)
Melancholy settles in.
All room surfaces
get ghosted
back to silence.
Then she realizes
she gets to keep the poems
she writes. Their letters
won’t vaporize so quickly.
Discovers an exit
where she enters
a tall stone-clad tower.
She climbs its angled, wide stairs.
Reads names of towns
on the walls
as she gets higher
and higher. To the top. (baby)
Kind of like a lighthouse
shoved inland,
saving nothing,
where a dollhouse waits
below to be touched.
A jarring memory
of a napkin
from 45 years ago:
As she folds it
into a triangle
in that breakfast nook
in Indiana,
she tells herself
never forget
this moment.
Her father fries eggs, butters toast.
Bald, gray rectangles outside
expose a dry cold.
I am the matchbook
you shove
under a wooden leg
to level the table
you use
as an idea factory.
I get down
on all fours
to prop up
a mirror that magnifies you
two times larger
than you were yesterday.
I have a delicious power
you wish
to taste.
Stick out your tongue
and say
anything you want.
What you thought
would be sweet
turns out to be
hot and spicy,
slightly bitter
around the edge.
No rasp can touch
these legs
I use to run
through reflecting pools
and invisible waterfalls
in the dark.
Wait for me inside
the vestibule
of my inner ear.
You’ll make me dizzy.
I don’t mind.
It’s not you.
It’s that damn dimple.
The one that appears
on your left cheek
when you give me
that crooked smile.
I thought it signaled
your love.
Peel off
the red
raincoat. Turn
it inside out.
We all make each other
sick some
of the time
remaining in
the glass.
Nausea dissipates
when I walk it off.
When I snap
my fingers and forget
to hold my breath.
Hit by a wake
of rainwater
a morning bus makes
as it barrels through
every puddle. Hit
by a gray thought—
losers, only losers. Hit
by a Dumptruck
song she hasn’t heard
in years. The Haunt.
Hit by all the names
she never remembers,
she hits back. The sound
of vulcanized rubber
on wet pavement
becomes her
secret overture.
As the train crosses over,
it stuns me again to be living
so close to the northern end
of this multithreaded river.
Entrenched beneath bluffs,
it’s just waiting
to have its hidden whitewater
rapids restored.
I would give away
every page of misguided poetry
I’ve written
to be so dignified.
To know exactly when
to make an exit.
Then it hits me—
a paddleboat slamming
against a dock. I tally
up all the moves
and miles logged
in rows of unlocked journals
and see
I’m the one
who has done the leaving.
Ghosted myself
as I seek
another body
of/or water
to inhabit.
The wind dies.
Sails go slack.
Standing water
overripens in a fountain.
Knots in her throat loosen.
Her heart goes numb.
She can hear music playing
on a radio.
The words to the song
don’t register.
Afternoon sun
doesn’t warm her legs.
She looks up where a swirl
of marbleized clouds
cannot hide the blue.
September blue.
Another September 11th sky
stained with memory and silence.
Cut into irregular wedges,
the first McIntosh
of the season
crunches just right,
tastes perfect
as the Brooklyn Bridge
subway station logo
with its two B’s
backing into each other
Janus-faced. The journey
goes both ways:
Manhattan to Brooklyn,
Brooklyn to Manhattan.
This first apple
could be my last.
How many people die
on their birthdays—
a question backs into an exclamation.
It’s Tinker Bell, clutching
her one feeling
at a time. No,
it’s a trained hummingbird.
No, my guardian angel or
the street genius.
It’s a selfie drone
that hovers overhead
to protect or endanger
my airspace—
depending on mood
and time of day.
When I close my eyes,
I see it could be
a Mellotron or a real Dobro
that breaks my heart.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 