A ladder
back chair will
not push her
to hit a glass
ceiling with the tip
of her tongue. Without progressive
lenses, she can see
how life unfolds
in phases
of another
planet’s moon. Or two.
Architects toss out the best
words—another
year passes
successfully inside
a found poem.
Dreams that open
vaults might release
phantom lovers
with guitars. Live
music gets played
in a bar
meant for only
one thing—living
to drink. And
she doesn’t
anymore—drink
that is. Rumor
of a nickname
for her
she doesn’t
recognize. VIP
status gets a seat
on a fireplace
hearth. Who
can remember
how their bodies
came to collide
in five
easy moves.
Was it
like this? Probably
not, but a fire
burning on a cold
November night
could dissolve
the need to know.
People watching
becomes an accidental
fixation with her own
reflection after dark.
No more
invasive myths
about what can be seen
beneath the meniscus without
a mask.
A stranger bows before her
legs with some declaration
she doesn’t hear. Headphones
plugging her into
the third Rolling
Stones song
in a row. Exactly 23
years since that fire
left her homeless
in New Haven. Exactly two
more months
till 50
becomes her new
home. Will it be
the last
compliment for her
she doesn’t hear?
Slowly as a feather
drifting in luxury
down till it dropped
suddenly—a splat
of cobalt blue
inking the background
in all directions. That plane
taking off
from O’Hare
a week ago
really wasn’t gaining
altitude fast
enough, and I believed
for a moment
that my desire
to see you one more
time would kill
me for real. No near
miss. And then suddenly
it began
to climb,
and I realized
I would make it
back to Minnesota. Anywhere
you hang yourself
and survive
to tell the tale
is home.
The last day
of summer gets forgotten—
rafts and dinghies
already stored
in garage rafters
for winter. Some kids
starting their second
month of school. Some years
the leaves are already
turning—not this one.
Grieving the end
of nectarines and plums
over for weeks now. Memories
of swimming
in an ocean or lake or river or creek
in the heat fading
with a full harvest moon
that rose
three nights ago.
She missed it again—but not
the double rainbow that appeared
before a steady mist
accompanied yesterday’s civil
twilight. She won’t forget that.
You are my laughing phoenix,
I am yours.
Our cackling woke the dead.
Endlessly we cracked jokes
waiting for the fire engines (not red)
to arrive.
No, wait! Hurry! Get back
inside. Let the smoke
choke us out of five hundred years’
worth of played-out puns.
Six hundred too many Arabian nights
have us cracked up under the moon.
Reduced to ashes, we could ask to be blood-red,
winged beauties next to one another
shaking feathers forever in the desert.
But you would not reinvent yourself
with me. For me,
the ashes scatter irreverently. For you,
tradition’s fire in the belly burns
as you wait for ladders and hoses.
Dry as the skin of wakened dead,
the puns will reduce me
to tears for five hundred or so
more years. Unless, of course,
you weren’t my last,
laughing one.
To hang sconces
so low they could poke
an eye out. To climb
a ladder left
to rot beside
a dead pigeon still
in perfect form. To bruise
the right
wrist when the left
ankle is already packed
in ice. To be so
vulnerable is no more
bad luck than
cracking up in full
length mirrors.
Strike twice on
the same stage
in the same
heart to doom
the same
life all over
again. She only thinks
she recognizes
that dose
of thunder
as his.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 