No pity. No sighs
behind her back. If
she says the word
out loud, it will become
her. No grace
period. She hums
“Female Jesus”
as she walks
the streets alone
at night—that last
Athens, GA, scene
still fresh. No colder
here than there—
and that’s the real pity.
Looking for a late night
barber, he sees a glass
seahorse in a shop
window. No more eating
fish. Who needs a lip
shine with a whisper
so round? He untangles
his daily geometries, walks
across plaza ice
to get home before
some bicyclist mistakes
him for himself.
I’m trying to do the math; then he says it.
An actor becomes a narrator
who mentions the year he was born—is the year
I learned to walk. No coincidence,
no fate—just a fictional character
sending texts to a woman
fond of tracing shadows
without an overhead light.
She turns off
movies just before
the last scene, closes
books and shuts off
the light with five pages
left to read. She forgets
the definition of closure—
still talks to exes alive
or dead. Never
celebrates New Year’s Eve
where anyone can see her. Stops
writing a poem without completing
the arc
To float is not
always the goal.
Some air bubbles
burst for no reason.
On those nights, I let go
of my need to follow the moon.
Everyone has reservations.
A porch no one
can describe wraps
around its house—tightening,
tightening. Hugs
the footprint as a disciple
of home is
where you check in
without a check-out time. Tin
tile ceilings in the two-story
lobby. A triangle
park and a bluff
anchor all activity
in the oceanfront garden. Bonfire
night after night where effigies
of the over-worshipped burn.
What washes ashore below
erases questions and desire
for answers. I could drag
my dinghy across the sand
and know it’s time.
A skyway floor
tiled in original Lego
red and gray.
Another covered
in carpet patched
together with black
duct tape—I make my connections
above vehicular fray
seamlessly. New patterns
will arise if we can bounce
off the darkness
into true winter
without misfiring.
Do they remember
months after the solstice? Who
will speak
for you tomorrow morning
before strange fog
clears? Tonight this parade
answers no questions.
“the thin blue flame
Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, from “Frost at Midnight”
I get confused about red. Is it
a door, pair of jeans, or a flashing
light I want to guide me
toward the darkest day? Again, the longest night will stretch
into that moment
of optimism when all shrinking
is done and I can almost imagine
the view from the sun.
She is one—or
thinks she is. That blood
on her chin
is really ink she stole
from your pen. See how perfect
diamonds have been cut
out of the pages
to your book of musings. Don’t laugh—
she might get away with it.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 