Narratives flood the garden
of sound. Why does rocking
a cradle calm them—shake
trebling from all those voices?
She can only hear two
knocking about
in her head now.
When it comes down
to a single
deepening whisper,
she’ll know she’s arrived
home for the night.
A big, bold-faced metal paper
clip causes a bump
in her writing. It affixes
a lost father’s
face to a daughter’s
daily desire to become attached
to just the right
image. A reminder—like the callus
on her left
middle finger. Not a gesture
of defiance, but a gentle nod
to left-handed beauty
and respect. And a big black
bird scrapes the sky overhead.
No ode—pastoral
or urban
myth—will do. No
flag raising
in any pattern or
color. No parades—though
he loved them.
It’s an odd.
A prime.
The current count:
7 days to make a week.
7 notes on a musical scale.
7 attributes of physicality.
7 words to Step 7 begins humbly.
7 home states plus one.
7 children and grandchildren.
7 months to make a preemie.
Some say seven is
this world.
What comes next? I might ask him.
To listen for an answer
in night-falling murmurs
of an otherworldly pulse becomes
the point—not the answer itself.
Fear is the only four letter word
I need to say
to be free. Another season begins
to break
without him. A patch of sidewalk
ice melts
into a small lake, freezes again
overnight. Spring
can’t get any traction. Somewhere
an empty suitcase, an empty raincoat,
an empty tomb. Don’t forget (a parent
or sister might say)
to snap
a mental picture
of those ocean waves breaking
open another calm
after a late winter storm.
“Love’s a Spanish word to be sung.”
—Jay Farrar (Son Volt, from the song “Brick Walls”)
He would live in a pop-up
hotel, watch water
drain from a claw
foot tub, walk
the length of his own city
without a license. Not
to speak
a single word
for ten days and use
that vacant space
to recall each
and every train
he’s boarded. In English,
it all hinges
on a Rio Red 747.
Dog-eared becomes
a symbol, a brand, that act
of defilement your grandmother
warned you about. Who remembers
where they were? The angle
they approached the image from? Who
remembers which image? To recall
the young woman nodding off
next to you in a packed auditorium,
the color of the floor
beneath your feet, how her head
bobbed and drooped
toward her man, then you
(no drool) is
to be
a bookmark floating
on an liquid crystal display sea.
The height of the podium,
the last thing you drank
before entering the ball
room. The play
of words suspended
from an unidentifiable drop
ceiling before they settle
onto a page—folding down
a top edge of translucent
thought. Dog-eared.
I can almost taste
the snow—nothing
good ever comes
from that. A late March double
espresso might neutralize
the palate. Might
not. A family
reunion in August resuscitated
to honor my father. I
never went when he was
alive. How can I
go now? August is
the month of grand
gestures, spiritual releases.
August is
the month he left
us. Yes, I told him
he could let go, but
how could I know
what it would be like
to live in a world without
his heart beating
in it? August is the month
when water
falling majesty just
might return.
This one isn’t talking
into his cell—
he’s just talking
to himself. The first day
of spring and a Caution—
Falling Ice sign
still stands outside
the crime lab. Notable
wind chill and not a blade
of grass to be seen
anywhere outdoors. Inside
the skyway linked
towers, little plots
sprout everywhere.
The morning’s unexcused
absence can lead to another,
then another, and
still another till
truncated days are
all we get. Our children’s
children will dream of civil
dawn the way we long
for a pristine shoreline, pine
forest, subway wall, guitar
riff. Saudade
for time of day
as much as for a place
or soul we never knew
renders us
human all over again.
To read upside
down even for an hour
without laughing
out loud, to spell out
all acronyms
subject to interpretation,
to whisper
so loudly periods explode
is to become a modern
dancer who courts
her shadow
when the coast is clear.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 