A man in the corner
of the corner
bar sings “Moonshiner.”
A beat-up harmonica
gets swiped
across his mouth
between lines. She’s returning
from the dark side
again—bottled
water to her lips.
Night Poems
Leporello
She wails when he plays
it. If only those bellows were paper,
she might forgive
her father this disturbance.
Her mother says
he’s a little off
key—she should know. But
that’s not it. Her distress
is buried in the mechanics
of what we inherit.
Wick
I could be tied up, could
hide in this thick
mass, dictating the time
it will take
to self consume
a trail into tilted shadows. I could
be barley twisted
burning at both ends
of aroma’s blocking. Or, I could
become intoxicated
by this power to refuse
devotion visible
against a snuffer’s insides.
Letter to a Young Alcoholic
When I was you, I was
still drinking
from a fountain on the edge
of some urban park. I was
a city in foreclosure
from itself. You are a better you
than me. I can wear my sidewalks
with pride today, but the night
once stole my stroll
towards the dry well, sand
and twigs left to clog the gutters
leading to my heart. Would you want to be
me, would you sip from my cup?
Dance Out
Even if she wished,
could she anymore,
if she wished it,
would she dance out
the strange spirit
to carry her from this secure road
to a slather of muck?
To dance out
is to care less,
to give away dreams
you have coveted within
your all-alone nest,
is to offer them stupidly,
to know they will congeal ugly
when music stops. It almost
always does. To dance out
even one more time
is to admit your dreams
are only that. To dance out
is you
who will never believe,
never live off that sickly-sweet air,
never ask the clock to stick its hands
into thin-air brew.
Nude
Nude Imagine a pocket door of glass
block. Imagine
an etching of a figure leaning
against an ash tree upon that sand
recycled curtain, a drain of cold
water cascading
around her limbs. It is
June. It is raining. It is
midnight. There is no moon,
nothing to place an image upon.
It is nude.
After Hours
It’s tension. This talk
of the temporary. No shelter—
but a stretch
to represent. I
would not live
in a tent. To go
to parties means meeting
a man who says:
“Let’s light up
the Third Avenue Bridge.”
Not burn it
down. That’s a different party
on a different night.
Because the darkness can
be so random I rarely go
out without my torch.
At Northrop Auditorium Watching the Martha Graham Dance Company
Hand over palm of other hand,
no one sits
like this anymore. But I
do it because I
want to invoke a god
to this dance
I watch, wondering if
it’s being done right. Because I
need a divine
answer to this mortal question:
Is it ever done right?
I wonder what happens if
my heart stops racing
long enough. There’s a girl
who was born yesterday—
and hers is beating just right.
Illumination Night
Summer ignites itself
Methodist style. Japanese
paper lanterns Noguchi might have made
for Martha Graham’s last dance
alight the campgrounds, set the island aglow
in pinks, oranges, yellows, fire-engine
red awash. A crowd gathers to mingle, a child
may wander tonight
in wonder the way gingerbread
cottages welcome her to their wooden railed porches, dare her
to touch the gossamer skin
on their handmade firefly swarm, cracking paint on their rainbow eaves, beckon
an unconscious desire to trace a piece
of island history with fingertips. Her grip on home
rice paper thin, she wants to believe
her step across these wooden planks will never end. But
as she witnesses this blaze of an island blasting its last August
shouts before a decrescendo toward an autumn whisper
few hear, fewer comprehend, she knows she must relinquish
the island to return it to those who find
illumination into night without
a lantern, without a tabernacle song.
Truth in Transport
Someone’s placed a photo
of a boat on the side
of a train. There are buses
with bicycle racks
on their grilles, people walking off
planes onto moving
sidewalks. And there’s the pigeon foot
I discover on a curb
a mile from home. It smells
like nothing, but there’s
rot in the air, could be
a dead squirrel, could be dead
leaves. If you can smell my decay,
will you let me
know? I can never
tell how I get translated—never realized
you could tell
there was alcohol on my breath
when I kissed you good-night.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 