No one walks
this way
forever. No one waits
for the call
without some skin
crawling in
the dark. No one wishes
this on you—save
perhaps you. Save
yourself from
yourself. I would walk
that far to meet you
in the middle
where odysseys are
just stories we read
before switching off the light.
for Sheri
She knows every inch of the dock,
every splinter, barnacle,
hurricane seam.
It is not a plank.
It is just where she walks.
And she knows how to dive,
has been doing it for years.
No easing shore side
into the wash for her,
she plunges in and is “used to it”
before others wake.
This is underworld—closets,
caves, roads, the drag
of undertow. This is where she should
live, she who in her heart is a sponge
is a sponge is a sponge.
It is laying out to dry,
the exposure to air,
the rising sun. It is her death
to be before all of you. In performance,
she will never work a room,
works the ocean floor
for all it’s worth.
Leave her uncontained. She would rather
paint kisses—watercolor running—
than be confounded by a mirage of roses
she cannot reach, without a body
protected or unprotected by skin.
Your 36th
sober birthday if
you had lived. I remember
when you told me
you put down
the bottle. I didn’t understand—
my first tipsy
only weeks before. But
that prayer
I now choke on
between “grant me”
and “the serenity”
since you died. That prayer
I thought you wrote
with your second wife. That prayer
I knew had magic
in it—hanging over
the kitchen sink
ready to help
whoever might read it
come clean. That prayer
I pin
to my heart each night
before I sleep. That prayer
enshrines every gift
you, my father,
ever gave away.
Wild winter wishes
rumble through weeds. A plain
for practicing
freedom cartwheels. Late
afternoon fog, or
are they low-lying
clouds dancing just above
freezing? No more
halo, I make my way home
without rings.
Dumpster divers go
deep into the dense
castaway fray
seeking souls
sold, gifted, re-gifted,
sold again. Is their retrieval
performance art? I set
the stage with a table,
chairs, worn-out dresses,
a suede jacket bought
used, old bookcases,
more than one pair
of black boots. Am I the set
designer or merely
an enabler?
Questions to ask next time
the lid slams too hard.
I am the waterfront
cottage you refuse
to abandon
after another super
storm. I refuse
to be redundant. I am
one more tragic
hero in a long line
of them swimming
in the undertow
after dark. Could be
avoided. It’s the heel not ankle
deep water. I am
never coming back.
Water
pressure becomes
the source of happiness
as a broken pipe turns streets to
rivers.
More than ready to close
the book
on this year. New cases bought
and assembled. Shelves and volumes
remembered, dusted, rearranged. A new order—but
too much left
unsaid. A beautiful birth, a transformative
death, I stand
somewhere between
living my life.
The dullness
of this count does not mirror
the flash
of metal that cuts longing
into irregular slices
of grief.
No steady hand
can regulate how
it gets measured, how
another day will fold
open with his absence
now ink
that has set into the fibers—
bleeds and all.
Even if she did eat
pears, it wouldn’t have mattered.
He still would have expected
love too soon. Would still be drinking
too much
red wine strangely chilled
to notice how
she devours green apples.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 