Or, sea of meerkats
in the middle
of Times Square. No,
scratch that. Lawn
chairs floating
over a dying lake. Sentries
fold into their own
whispers. Who
will protect
the walkers from
the strollers from
those other
peripatetic clans? I’ve been here
before. Or, maybe not. December
morning fog dampens
and loosens my hold
on some bad lines
from a mediocre movie.
The title has already drifted off.
Did I invent
you? A mirage
of a mural painted
on the side
of a bus. Airstream—not
Greyhound, VW, Trailways, twinkle, diesel,
hybrid, double
decker, or magic. To miss
an imaginary friend, to become
jealous of her lovers
is to wear down
a postcard of Lisbon
in the 50s before
I was born. Did you
imagine me this far
down the dirt
road in the fog?
A dew droplet. Bubble
in silhouette. A hole-punched
hole perforates
the sky. Remove the rusted
O and take
a look inside. If
the peephole is too
high, lower
your expectations. Low
lower slowest
way to count
clouds interfering
with a direct route
to the interior
of the other side.
Without permission,
her pilot light
blue eyes lock
onto a boldly painted
arrow on a sign.
It points left
to a back room
she knows well but
not from this angle. It’s not
a secret to be
uncurled. Another sign
in another place
on another street points
left too. Blocking
the only revolving
door in sight, it says in chalk:
“Use Revolving Door.”
This is how messages
come undone without being
erased. It takes 12 years
to put Adam back together
from shattered marble
fragments. Blue
weakens to yellow.
An 85-year-old
woman gets raped
in her apartment. The weakest
flame is a murmur
that signals some
of us home.
Is that a surgical mask
on his face or
a desk lamp obstructing
my view? A cube
in the middle
of the room
could take up
all the space
in my head. Contaminated
thoughts could become
the beginning
of someone
else’s master
work—or a brief
ode to the long gone
70s without stanzas.
Fiddlers translate
the sound of water
rushing over creek
bed stones into string
music. Editors meddle
sometimes for the better,
sometimes worse. I am
no musician no
architect no dancer no
doctor no comic javelin
thrower no no
gardener code
specialist no secret
agent no no just
a meddler sometimes
the one
meddled with. Mettle left
over another hymn to write.
Too early for music (live
or streamed or recorded or
dead). Neon lit
guitars above the roadhouse bar.
Coffee poured not Mexican
martinis. They’re everywhere here—
guitars. I still remember
the lesson you gave me. I got G
but not C. But nobody cared. We laughed
our heads off
as the bus rolled down
a Connecticut turnpike. Still too early
this morning in Austin
to replay it aloud.
Untamed or unnamed, the tilt is in
her head—and a lock shuts
down forever to stop
the spread of invasive
species up
river. Forever is
a long time to fight the ambitions
of fish. She’ll find the way
to unburden her own.
No matter how many transfers
I pluck off
the ground, she will never
kiss me
on the bus
again. Valid
for 2 ½ hours. Time’s
up. Dirt on the magnetic
strip. Invalid
for life. How lame
that I am still limping
after all these years. Again,
I forget
who she is—Daffodil
or some lesser lily
of the field. Face validity
will do. Fingerprints
everywhere. I do know she’s no longer
made of glass.
What I saw is a secret.
In whispers, I must only hint at
a northern Rimrock ridge,
a chain of snow-capped mountains called Beartooth,
unnaturally drawn carvings into a landscape from plane view
I could not identify,
irrigation ditches said the gentle guide at road level,
a canal where I would go
the last morning to pray,
the only way I know how.
Monday morning on my feet snaking a bicycle wheel-wide path
without falling, out of practice, forgetting the verses,
all the pauses and kneeling that must be choreographed just so
till I see what I must only whisper,
till I can take my trail mass to his bedside,
tell him louder than Roman chants
that I ran along his altar,
was trailing after him one more time,
while he rested half a lifetime of roads
into the quietest missal you can read
only if you close your eyes to hear,
your ears to see.
It is a secret
I must whisper. Two nights ago
with your hand tight around mine,
your breath tight around time,
yelling with lips through which nothing comes,
defying you to give me more road,
more trail you have in you than a mere cartographer,
to unfold before me,
whether or not I will be able to fold it up flat again.
I must only whisper
how the ridge and the ditches and the sky captivate,
can only whisper
how you, my father, must not die tonight,
can only whisper what you see, have seen,
I saw, am seeing—
this secret Big Sky.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 