I make these cutouts and teardowns
with my own hands. Rivers and rape
have no relationship
to me. I come for the winding
water story. The other is a dry,
desperate crack in a vase. The wrong kind of deliberate,
it exposes danger. Someone could attempt to play
god. It’s the sand martin I hope to hear
as it emerges from its tunnel. It’s the abundance
spilling through my fingers
I plan to offer. Who’s going to laugh at that?
She speaks of rivers—
Mississippi, Ouse, Styx,
Hudson, Cuyahoga,
Lethe—to remember
what it means
to be. Real or mythic,
head or mouth, east
or west bank, locked
or free falling—visions
collect at the bottom. A bed
of dreams she prayers
won’t become nightmares
to expose her ambivalence
about hands folded, knees
as pressure points, what can be gained
by this position over
another stance. Or to walk
along truth flows south.
A legacy of doing
the math, a grandmother with a sixth
grade education and pitch thirst, knew
her numbers.
This social networking age tallies
what can’t be counted
on and loses
track of each heart beat. It could be
my job not to forget.
“The stark, unutterable pity,
To be dead, and never again behold my city.”
—James Weldon Johnson, from “My City”
What if this is how it’s going to be—
atmospheric screen frozen,
no rebooting. Only one season left,
all natural warmth from the sun
a myth
our ancestors handed us
on a microwavable platter. The raw
movement dies from lack
of passion.
No more fire
in the belly, no more burning
desire to create friction—
to get next to you. This table wobbles.
That type set to tell on those paintings
has shrunk
to a grunt. I’ve lost
the secret code to maintain
an allusion. This uncoordination
has nothing to do with my left hand.
* James Weldon Johnson, from The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man.
. . . do I count them
before or after
this verbal thievery? If I live
in the past, may as well revel
in this day come nightfall.
Twenty years is a long time to be
entranced by a voice. The voice. It stops
my soul from deflating
under self-reflexive pressure. The voice
that fills a dark room as if
it’s been doing it
since long before I was born. This is
the voice that invites me
to stop leaving out
the moment we’re in now. Who knew.
The first time I could have thought
I’d died and gone to heaven, I didn’t.
Only years later would I see
how one night of live music inside Toad’s
Place would be all I ever needed—
one almost lethal obsession kicking
in, another stubbornly tame one sparked
and filed away in a Midwestern vault
for safe keeping. Do not remove for more
than a decade (and a half). The first time
I did think I’d died and gone
there, I took a wrong turn
onto a riverboat and got trapped tracing
a wake aft. To cross it without spilling
into myself has become a new preoccupation
about to break the surface. Ready
as I’ll never be and all other stolen
turns of phrase twisted inside out.
Scams in layered designer
clothes dance under
runways where beautiful
naïves hollow out thought
before all of us
left. Where the real
spectator sits huddled
is old/new media free.
Three days later. Can’t sing anymore.
An uncle’s ashes scattered
from the Statue of Liberty. Nightmares
in daylight, cross out drunk—
write down sick. Expected rescue
does not come. Nothing
is wasted in this world—is a lie. A lump
of cold damp earth
in her hand. To the edge, she closes
her eyes, opens her hand. Thin
tinkle of a mandolin makes
a sad sound. Not from the common
cup—not Johnny.
Note: Contains phrases found or inspired by Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
You once said if I didn’t smell
like smoke I would smell
like sex. Now that the air has cleared,
I just want to smell
fresh coffee brewing
come morning, an old book fanning
open in the afternoon, traditional Tibetan
incense burning come evening,
rosewater splashed on my face
before I sleep.
“Onstage the Scottish musicians begin to break the skin of the evening and the music fills the room—mandolin, guitar, fiddle.”
—Colum McCann, from Zoli
It doesn’t matter if it’s shattered
diamonds or glass she sees winking
in fresh snow to carry her home
after dark. This splinter
pain touches her left foot
where the big toe attaches itself
to the sole. Nothing there
but a nagging to remind her
she is no exception. Mortal—
with a limited number of steps, breaths—
she’ll strive to keep them
in unison as long as a splinter
moon allows.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 