Weeping
becomes her salve
addiction not to cure
her gift to you and all those gone
before
He Loved a Parade
A patriotism
I did not inherit. Along Asbury
Park’s Main Street
heading toward the shore—the last one
we watched together. Tears
came to his eyes when bagpipers marched
past in their wool kilts. Their drone
pipes in near perfect harmony. Fireworks
have frightened me since dodging
M-80s in the Paris metro
on Bastille Day,
then in the New York subway
every 4th of July
for years. I could never keep step
with a group. Always got the incurable urge
to cross the street
in the midst of it all
against the flow. But now
that he’ll watch no more
parades, a single bagpipe
opening wide those first notes
to “Amazing Grace”
is a freeze
tag tap I cannot ignore.
Some Sunken Urban Parks
don’t deserve to be
preserved. Sometimes
a smile is too
precious, a phrase too
slippery, a mirror
too polished, room
too clean, dog
too calm, child too
still, a bird
too blue. I might be
the street that got too
wide. But no tree
could ever be
too tall.
Who’s Really Got Bette Davis Eyes?
Today slate,
tomorrow lapis
lazuli, tonight
a batting between.
She’ll never see
the world through the eyes
of stars. A blue moon
would be her waltz
to summer night
swoons. And that’s new
wave enough.
With Sloping Shelves
Multicolored book
trucks still roll
into view. She muzzles
herself as she drifts
to a one-room
library circa 1970. Rain dazzles
the surface
of the island. The scent
of Mylar, settled-in
type, a lilac
perfume on the librarian
who reads
Blueberries for Sal
to a circle
of restless children. Next stop,
next town, the Flying Horses
to ring themselves off.
Then it fades away.
10 Months
Another 27th day hits
the way heat slaps
my face when I leave
an air-conditioned
shell. He would have walked
in it—no matter
what. I mention an MIT cap
and ring to a young architect
who knows
the Institute well. He says
as much as it changes
it remains the same. My father
faced change,
loved the same.
Low Couture
She is a closet
dress maker. A model
for the people. A person—
she’s the one.
300 Days
A super moon rises a day after
trees came down and a quarter of the city
was left powerless. Before
you were gone
from not just your body
but your mind, you would have counted
on that extra full
lunar event to anchor us
a little more securely
to life. Before and after.
Downed
The longest
day of the year collapses
into darkness
hours too early. Another bout
of extreme
weather rumbles
through—tears trees
from their roots
like a cat
shedding for summer. Power
lost, flash
flooding drowns
the whimsy
of solstice
ceremonies. Dances
over the river
cannot stop it
from spilling over too far.
If She Reads Too Much
Into this
collision of events—
an anniversary and
an announcement.
An epitaph nodding
at a long dead
affair gets plastered
with a bill blasting
a live
threat. A reunion
of the soundtrack
that did her in. She could peel
it off—the stone would still
be cool. But these words
are not.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 