Again she asks
the water
droplet on a corner
table who owns
the land. Who
owns you—precious
liquid, tiny reservoir
of truth? What’s
an embarrassment
of papers mean
in a flood? Or,
incurable thirst? I’ll mop
you up—but
I won’t buy.
Overnight Poems
Cracking Up
Oceans rise
by twelve feet
by when. How to buy
time and use it
to buy more. Who
is selling those years,
months, days, hours. Minutes
available on eBay
to the highest
bidder. Too late. Childhood
memories of a shoreline
cottage won’t wash away
with its stoop. Is it really
too late?
Interrupts
A set of keys
left in the freezer, another
in the palm
of her hand. Doors
open on contact
in her dream. And the lover
(there’s always a lover)
she’s about to
wake to
jangling metal
is strangely
familiar.
This Year’s Color
Radiant orchid
throughout each season—even now
when rain can’t quite
wash away the most hardened dirty
snow. Somewhere the temperature
drops just enough at night
before a warming settles in. Somewhere
someone sings,
“California Dreamin’”
to coax things along. Someone
somewhere is still searching
for a word that rhymes
with orange.
Weather Extreme Cinquain
Will not
talk about it–
no circumpolar whirl
wind shear doldrums super storm fog–
just air.
Prosaic Dream
You are not in
her dream—merely fragments left
behind to prove
you were here. A small sketchbook,
a pair of socks, one
thick glove, a trace
of your carefully constructed
thought. She handles
the sketchbook but
finds an old-fashioned band
flyer with a letter scrawled
on the back
more appealing. Scans
the words—sees her name
near the bottom of the page. Slanted
forward. You know what
they say about that. And then
she wakes up. No idea
what the letter said
about her or who
it was addressed to. It’s 20 below,
and the cat’s licking bedroom
window blinds again.
Despite What You Believe In
Just because she takes
pictures of snow-packed trails
with her iPhone doesn’t mean
she’s a photographer. Writing
a text to his lover
doesn’t make him
a writer. Just because
she flies
first class overseas
doesn’t mean
she’s a pilot (or
waitress in the sky). Singing
“You Sexy Thing”
in the shower doesn’t make you
a singer or rock
star I might fall in
love with. Just because
I checked out
of the Take No Heroes Hotel
doesn’t mean
it will happen again.
All My Favorite Photos of You
for Sheri
Gone. Did the New York Subway #1
train pickpocket keep
them? I shouldn’t have kept them
all in my wallet. I wanted
some—any—scrap left
of you with me
at all times. You had been
gone only a little
over a year. I should have paced
myself. I was too young
and naïve to understand the infinite
nature of your absence. You understood
limits and functions
so much better
than I ever could. And
the symbol
for infinity could be
a pattern we used to scrape out
with our skates
on the Thornton Park Ice Rink.
Smokefree Cinquain
Three years
and keep counting
up then down to return
to a time I still feared lighting
a match.
Another Cinquain in Which a Minneapolis Girl Without Wheels Contemplates 2014
No more
excuses left—
Saint Paul here she comes now
riding the Green Line LRT
at last.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 