I will
give you these lines
stretching over black top
till they become taut and begin
to snap.
Overnight Poems
Atomic Number 13
Afterthoughts dance a revel before
me in their borrowed tunics
and repurposed top
hats. I would like to see
that cellar retrofitted
beneath the surface
that cannot be defined. I
imagine how it would be
to submerge an old Airstream—
my silver bullet travels
just under the earth’s skin. I cringe
but then applaud
the rising courage that gets
partially skimmed off.
Vitamin E
My thighs have turned
a bloodless white. A dry
heaving wind Marilyn
Monroes my dress. A tiny
globe exposed, I walk inside
city limits—checking,
checking, checking
those boundaries I installed
with bare feet
and the promise of late
July rain. A voice
bellows and gusts
from the bottom
of my back
pack. I won’t
reach it
in time. Solitude has sprung
loose again.
Fear Is a Four Letter Word—And So What
Someone drove a Nash
rambler into my heart.
See these burn scars. I’m knitting them
into poems fast
as I can. Fear is
a cross-stitch I’m
still learning how to work
into a pattern. Perfection
is for the gods.
On the Remake
“Then nothing will remain of the iron age
And all these people but a thigh-bone or so, a poem
Stuck in the world’s thought, splinters of glass
In the rubbish dumps, a concrete dam far off in the mountain . . .”
—Robinson Jeffers, from “Summer Holiday”
I can find the trash
chute without falling
under its spell. Won’t be abducted
by shattered glass thoughts
desperate to become sand
again. I will recycle myself. Will
find another man
to feed me—am seeking
fresh vegetables, grilled fish, and laughter
sweet as peaches
we’ll dare to eat.
You, Conduit
To pretend to be
an atheist and still believe
in guardian angels is
this house
where I live with blinds
closed tight. To profess to live
in solitude by choice
while scars of loneliness tattoo
my legs, my soul, is
to give loners
a bad name, is to let myself
down root
cellar stairs into a leaky chamber
where only humans go.
Joseph
I understand how it is
to become mesmerized
by a sea
siren. I’ve had my own
Ondine. I’ve wanted
to destroy immortality with my mouth
and hands. Had my own Rose
too—have followed the unraveling
of all tapestry
in motion. It’s a disturbed drive
to erase all plot
to revel in what remains—a face
framed just for me.
Soft Rime
I resort to artificial tears
when unexpected
wind dries up my view.
When I reach that confluence
where I must drop
it, so I can heal, I’ll be ready
to swallow easy. My eyes
will no longer resemble
the backside of my tongue.
The weeping didn’t
last. Even briefer
than the heart on heightened
alert. Even briefer than a moon
to moon gap. Should I become
a faucet, I hope to filter out
all of that gritty pride.
No Ginger
“I stand on my head on Desolation Peak
And see that the world is hanging
Into an ocean of endless space.”
—Jack Kerouac, from the 1st Chorus of “Desolation Blues” (Book of Blues)
Prone to motion sickness, I’ve looked
for adjustments. How to encounter the rolls
and curves without losing myself
when I have a suspicion
I should do just that. How to
accept this condition, this disease
of being human without
somersaulting over the bluff. How to drop
everything I battle gravity
over to let stillness in the center
of a wild wind be my single garment. How to be
a mammal without a thick coat
of fur. How to be upright
on two leathered feet. How? Like this:
I’ll let the blood rush
to my head without blushing.
Distance Avails Not *
I like to correspond with the dead:
Tell Emily what it’s like to be
a woman alone
in a room
in the 21st.
Ask Walt what he thinks
of the Brooklyn Bridge
127 years after
the fact. The fact is
I can write to anyone. I could
even choose to write
a letter
to you who still breathe.
* from Walt Whitman’s “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 