I wish I liked the taste
of pomegranate seeds
in a dish, would become
an object of seasonal fertility,
object of someone’s desire,
if I could only dismiss
the sour burning
on my tongue.
I cannot. He kisses me—
my lips still stinging
from the pulp—full
on the mouth. I wish
I could hold onto
the taste, know it
pleases and frightens
all the senses,
know it signals
a message within:
This is going to be harder than you think, this acquiring
a resistance to his taste.
She was just a smoking pool
that night as any other. She belonged
to the faceless generation
till
she found hers
on the back of an envelope
addressed to no one.
He talked up the stone
through the storm-clenched night.
A noise so round, it became
her rapture.
I need you tonight,
moon, am collapsing in
the curve of you. I found
a wrench in the street this morning.
I need you tonight,
throwing tools
(I am afraid to use)
before me, am reaching to cradle
my own knees—
bruised by misjudgment.
These arms, these fingers are too
stiff. Right tighter, left
looser, bolts land
arranged in a pattern. I found
it could help
reckon through clouds,
stars aligning behind.
Regrets only
raise the lower
tree line equally. Bottom
leaves hidden from sunlight, they die
at the same rate. If I succeed
in not showing up
for another family pageant to appear
before you a doom
eager stranger mouthing
simple questions
about your coniferous forest,
I just might dig up my balance
beam in this black dirt.
Just might please the wind
to respond through your branches overnight.
She wonders what song
the Sirens sang
when they lured
men to their beds
for tortured pleasure
and the prospect
of oysters
on half shells floating
in the sky at night.
She wonders if she
could hum the tune
herself (without blushing).
If you are the Mississippi,
let me be
the Minnesota
flowing urgently
toward you, our
confluence
a point
of serious contention, water
marking all maps—virtual and real.
What the storm asserted
the wave to lash,
what the hull cracking
separated bow from stern forever,
what settled to ocean floor slowly
will reconstitute salvaged treasure.
If two people
someday dive into our wreck—
and they will—to collect
our splintered mass
of a life gone askew,
piece by piece,
what they bring to the surface,
what they examine
will be the new us,
will be a restoration,
regeneration, the religion of us
carted to the surface
alive in their palms.
No more illusions of steering
this dinghy ashore in the storm.
It’s going to rock; I’m going to remain
the name on its port side. It won’t fade away.
She is certain her mouth,
painted cerise,
will not wear away
too soon. She may
become all lips
without limbs, without
a neck, without a torso.
She would still dip
this color, with certainty,
to her brush.
Long before
day one
there was
this painted mouth:
Lipstick in hand,
she drew her mouth
perfectly without looking.
Later, watching herself
be an artist,
her lips canvas,
she drew a cinnabar moth,
not a kiss.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 