White, unadorned silk,
her obsession is showing.
How much depends on
how closely you look. If
you comment on it, she may reply:
Oh, it’s supposed to.
That’s the style
as is this gray hair.
Night Poems
Van Aken Boulevard
A forest-killing nightmare, a daydreamer rocks
to 70s radio hits on a black-and-white
checked basement couch. Not ready
to face the daylight pocketed
on a patch of carpet a floor above
her head. It’s the smart
(ass) ones she goes after with a gossamer twined
web she spits into those pipes
running along the ceiling. It doesn’t always stick.
Slender Language
As I become a lake
in a river, I narrow
my view to lines broken
by bridges, galvanized
steel spider
webs over my head.
I would forget the Liffey,
Erie Canal, pomegranate
seeds tucked inside a secret
pocket of stolen narration.
Would recall another Retreat
Drive and wish
to be remembered
for the scent of rosewater,
not the words I couldn’t
say slowly enough
to make you pause.
Character to Go
No time to explore
the lobby so make it
up as you charge
down the back stair
well. A dry one.
Not a drunk in sight. No mirrors
or reflective glass
walls to encase you
in your own reprieve
from the next flood. A drought
at another bottom. You’ve read
the views bind guests
to spells of stillness.
It’s not the pause
in your story. Are you
that delusional, or are you the real
omnipotent narrator come to quell
the intrusive one?
Steer Here
They say be
in the moment.
I say I want to be
in that moment—that night
three summers ago
on a boat as it changes
its course beneath the Brooklyn Bridge.
Pause into slow turning, live
guitars propel the motion.
Or that moment after
the boat has docked
on the bank of the Cuyahoga,
the sound of guitars
still rings
in my ears—lips
on mine before I know
what or who
is happening. But not that
moment followed by the next
of seemingly unending sea
sickness on a ferry
as it rocks across
the Aegean. And not that one still
to come that I cannot
fathom. How do I become
willing to let go of the old rail
to recognize when another exalted one
might strike? This question hangs
on tight.
Chiasmus
What if I were the one
standing on a stage—you were
below it, looking up
at me? If it were as simple
as reversing a spring
trench coat, we would have pulled
those sleeves through
their fabric-framed sockets
by now. And, still, these arms
would not be long enough
to extend my real
offering to you.
Timing Is Everything Else
I would begin with your boots,
would want you to relax
till it was time. I would want
you to do the same, would imagine
you gliding those zippers down
with ease. Snaps
on your shirt would sing
their pop song
as I pulled them apart
to discover what I’ve imagined
would be strong,
broad, well-covered. Amazing
what you can see
through all that hair—this hiding
is a writer’s only true lover
who waits in the dark.
Clutching Tags
Aphasia is anonymous
in its demand
that poems be
written
without words.
I’m not ready to give
mine up. The wave
of an ampersand
ropes them in
just in time.
Fragile Spring: A Ghazal
On quiet nights, fear makes me fragile.
Every damn sneer makes me fragile.
I just might break beneath my own breath
because what I hear makes me fragile.
Last year’s leaves rattle along the branch.
What’s no longer here makes me fragile.
Brief rains promise to reveal our aches.
The sky becoming clear makes me fragile.
Ice remains stubborn on the park’s pond.
Touching what is near makes me fragile.
Some animals won’t make it to spring.
Losing what is dear makes me fragile.
Emily Said It Too
This light has no logic.
It heats up tinted
images of you wrapping
around the walls
inside my solar
of make believe. No outside
truth will seep through
to stain your well-defined
face. The moment talked about,
its contracting destination
point, hangs
in suspension. We
don’t get there
from here. And that word
I meant to say, but
didn’t dare, is the only way
to arrive at your timbre. It’s up
there too, with its swinging “y”
tail making an underline
exclamation beneath
its other three
letters. They’re up
there to whip subtle
movements off
their hinges. Big,
bold, block pronouncements
too heavy not to fall
eventually.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 