In defiance, I will walk
directly into the fray.
Will use red ink
to sign my name. I’ll slip
through lines like ether.
Window shop down
every block. Pray for it
to rain tonight
on that damn parade.
Experience, Strength & Hope
This is the bed
you refuse to make
to prove you’re clean.
The gathering
of personalities
within the self
may be enough.
To hear the same
story told on the same
holiday each year
is nothing
to be thankful for. Nothing
against the narrator, but
it’s time for other
chroniclers gone awry
to take a turn.
Lake Street Again
Missed JFK
by 16 days, wish I could miss
that condescending sales pitch spilling out
of the guy at the table
next to mine in this independent coffee
bar. “Tell you what.” I choose
to be here in the middle
of an afternoon I have free. What is that
anyway? Structure
in a world post assassinations
and towers collapsing, in a world
where I witness car crashes
that could have been worse.
What is justifiable
fear? Pharmaceuticals
and a November sun
beams in. Lake Street busy but not
like I remember it when I lived
above the cobbler’s
and you were still alive.
Unbreakable
A perfect sketch
of a porch rocker
drawn with one
continuous line will be
my inspiration
for this lyric
as it comes to its single
complete stop
No Zinc
Everyone’s talking
about the dirt
she ate. About the myths
she created to defy
those creation myths
she read in a fog.
People return to the bluff
seeking some redemption
in a poet’s stare.
What’s she hiding—what was that
she just spit out
onto the stained
concrete floor?
Acceptance Letter
I wake to rumors
of the season’s first
snow fall, to a tickle
in the back of the throat urging
me to utter:
I am a fraud.
But I won’t
play, won’t say a word. Laughter
comes next. Good news
makes me anxious—what to do
with my hands,
lungs, knees. How to wear
my hair, my lips. Glasses
on? Off? It’s true—secret’s out.
Time to put the moment
on display.
Eve of Dropping
How much time
she can cram
onto a single sheet
of paper (without foldouts)
will not exceed
the days it takes
for her to erase
another ill-suited lover
from her imaginary dance
card. And the wiliest
of the ill has a sister
whose voice will soothe
during those marginal nights.
I Remember Vodka
Is it enter or exit
through the red door—I
forget. A tumbler stands
squat on that counter. It was that easy
to reach across
decades to discard those too vivid
memories. A high pitched voice ruins
this whole non-narrative
hymn. I crumble
on a stoop behind a threshold
wide enough for both ways.
Aphasia Part II
A lifelong conversation winds
around the trunks
of bare trees. She’s left
to support his silence
so he won’t fall
down the rabbit hole. The one
she can’t peer into for fear
she might like
what she sees. Might not ask
for help again.
Eleven Cubed
Whoever erased
all thoughts of him
from my head while I
slept last night
will become the new
mystery I expand
into an obsession
before snow falls
on another civil
twilight. Could be spitting
out toothpicks
for all I care.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 