Some words open
too wide to be
swallowed without
choking. I’ve
choked enough to last
into my next
life. It could happen—but
probably not
to me. Once. Who
really knows. Best
to stick with a metallic
beauty and let
urges stew.
No More Bloomingdale’s Minnesota
In closing, some stand back
in their standard poses,
others have taken
the fall into a pile
of limbs and tiny torsos. All
white-washed and naked
and smoothed over and buckled
under the expanse
of gray carpet
in an empty showroom
where the sales fell
short. Where they go
next is a recycler’s dream
I hope to have tonight.
Speaker Less Easy
These legs ache
from the act of hauling
the memory
of his voice and brilliant
wisecracks out my door, down
the back stairs, to the alley
dumpster. Done. I lean
these old wooden idols against the iron
base on wheels. I believe
in the potential to recycle
everything—the divers will come
out tonight. I wear this stiffness
as a badge of endurance. You
threw out mine almost as soon
as you heard it
in an age before reuse.
No More Hints
Strong evidence
of tobacco use on the corner
outside the library. I should
know. Have checked out
for five all but one
year of my life
in this town. A red
Q on this book
cover is no longer
a question. Quality days
begin to stack up
against an invisible wall. Collections
have their place. I don’t
miss the smoke.
No Bus to Abilene
Welcome to your usual
table by the window, to a few
stories behind the Soo Line
clock on the corner. Welcome
back diamond-shaped
laughter without a live
audience. The flowers
you ordered for your mother
should arrive in time
to whisper one more welcome
before walking through
another open door.
This Is Proof
She can count
to infinity, or
as long as she lives
to write. Poems
are tallies in a growing series
of figure eights. Notches
in the leg
of a wooden desk—
here’s where
it gets locked
in. Little deaths
and tremendous sighs
of relief
when another one clicks.
Ode to Technics
Twenty-one-year-old
speakers and receiver and
tuner and equalizer and memory
of how I would buy
and pay anything
to get closer
to that bastard
of young
with the voice. To replace
it all now
terrifies me. The sound
of anticlimax
is lonely and loud—
the young turned
fifty years ago.
Curse of the Cult of Personality
A door-to-door
salesman who sells doors,
he can’t hang on
a gate without
walls or a fence
to give it purpose. He swings
on bars
parallel to nothing
anyone can see. But he does,
and it’s hinged
in brass. And
he won’t stop there.
Beneath Her
No chance for nighttime
dreaming—a neighbor’s dance
beat disruptions wreck
any hope
of true REM. Her tolerance
for talking to drunks
has diminished
over a decade in reprieve
till it’s shrunk
to the size of a single shot
of espresso
she’s going to sip
in the morning start-over.
Seen Through Fog
There’s a story behind
Staten Island Ferry
orange. I can’t tell
it but can hear its tone
revealed in a soothing voice-
over through early morning fog.
Routine commuting becomes heightened
by the transcendent
moments before
the marathon begins
on the Verrazano
Narrows Bridge. By a skyline
permanently scarred, by a keel
built with steel
from collapsed towers, by film
and TV footage of our favorite
characters crossing one way
or the other. Sometimes someone
who’s had too much
winds up where he started
without getting closer
to home. Color
declares, or hides, or widens
the channel for multiple
interpretations. Always the same
orange, always the same
distance either way.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 