In the basement between
the family and laundry
rooms, a yellow wall
phone hangs—always ready
to be used. And we did
with alarming frequency. Track
lighting reflected in this mug
of coffee twinkles the way
those bulbs screwed into that cellar
ceiling between pipes
never could. Who were we
talking to all those hours? Who’s left
in our lives? I have answers,
and it doesn’t matter. No one expects
them—that’s how it works.
I’ll take two—one
for tonight’s winding
down those final shafts
of light. One because
the first could crack
open like a skull
against a ladder. Could be stolen
in that half
hour before sunrise. Could just wear
out. An autumn blizzard
could barricade access. Or
it could be
an addiction
to that fearless insanity to look
a stranger in the eye. Do you make
home deliveries?
No famous mobile
cutouts on a lawn
will work. A classic dance
piece from 1958
won’t do. None of those
instantly recognizable faces
disturbing the natural
world. Not a mountain—
or cave for gangster ghosts.
The names I know
come from the wrong
household. Your voice
seeps through a vent
beneath the porch.
Meet me there.
Turn the lights way down
low—let’s tell ghost stories to the street
lamps outside. I’ve been looking
at those shadows
on your face all my life. It’s time
we should meet.
She wears
no mask to honor
those dead—in her own
voice. A preoccupation
with cemeteries may end
tomorrow. Or her identity
will be revealed
by other naked means.
Fear ghosts,
god, graffiti, guardian
angels, and
home.
A bed of pine needles
because it’s Massachusetts.
You wear a shirt studded
with diamond-shaped snaps
two nights in a row. I’ll never tell
you how I like the gray
in your beard
the way I told him never
to shave his off
30 years ago. I won’t mix
you up. The music is
immortal. The flowers he grew
were something else.
Let this table not wobble, my coffee
not spill. Let me not offend
an old friend, remember how
to pronounce the name of your hometown
before I get there. Let it not rain
in New York City
Friday night. Let me discover alternative
spellings for closure, stop trying
to recall how you greeted and bid me
farewell—how I loved it so much
I kept it a secret
even from myself. Let me learn
how to write a grant to pay
for all this incurable longing
neither of us could afford.
She doesn’t visit haunted houses.
But for you she might
walk the disappearing
floor boards just to spy the illusion
of you and those insinuations
your eyes and long fingers held
captive for so many years. Creaks
expose only laughter wrapped
around the mystery
of what might have been. If
only those planks had been
longer, straighter,
of sounder wood.
“There’s no art
To find the mind’s construction in the face.”
—William Shakespeare, Macbeth
Black and white is better.
A chance to sing
with the prettiest
soccer player he ever coached is best
between the pipes. The choral
room fades into a late-night debate
séance. A rude awakening—you
were no challenge to her
even before she got so lonely
on her mountain. Did you get your kiss
beside a pile of broken
chairs? Behind another brick
in the wall? Bonfire flames
and umbrella silhouettes
become an unfinished
symphony. The egg
drop comes before those fish drawn
on their foreheads in crayon. You make me long
for the artless construction
of your face.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 