Let this table not wobble, my coffee
not spill. Let me not offend
an old friend, remember how
to pronounce the name of your hometown
before I get there. Let it not rain
in New York City
Friday night. Let me discover alternative
spellings for closure, stop trying
to recall how you greeted and bid me
farewell—how I loved it so much
I kept it a secret
even from myself. Let me learn
how to write a grant to pay
for all this incurable longing
neither of us could afford.
Meanwhile there’s this dream
I have of you—
a card game, a maze
of corridors, fingers hidden
behind torsos, a borrowed
kiss, another kind
of numbers played here—
and the song? I wake too soon.
She tells me to locate
my anger—to let it spill
onto your grave. Lost. No belief
in the deconstruction
myth plotting out how
you hurt me. Did you? Did I
you? Were you merely a tragic hero
I fabricated to escape
the curse
of the Take No Heroes Hotel?
No matter what she says, I may just collapse
on the cold stone
and pretend to be a peony
fluttering in strange October air.
Dear Day:
This is no Dear John. I promise
to embrace your moments—to be
true. And when you expire, I’ll live
in your memory. It’s my favorite
thing to do.
I come from the other
end of autumn
where black and white
frames get mistaken
for winter. But my mother birthed four
children—one for each season
in order. My brother came last
to claim the legitimate
snow and ice. I was born to bury
leaf memory in premature white—a virgin
covering before car exhaust
gets to it.
No perforation in a bird safe
building. I will smash
against glass if
I’m too absorbed in calculated
thought to see what barricades me
from you. It’s a long way
from our footprints
in the sand.
Some hot October
afternoon she leaves
you as abruptly as she rediscovered
your appeal. Death
doesn’t placate those of us
in the heat or near miss
lovers under any shape
moon.
Superstition and grooming
don’t mix in graveyards.
Urn selection can be a fun activity
for two—no more. Decisions
made during grief
break over our heads
as lightning on a warm October night.
A thunderous silence
leaves me counting
to digits even you
hadn’t planned to touch.
To be seamless
is not a goal. I’ve got to see
how you stitched together memories
and faces and the name plates
stuck in the dirt next to those blue
flowers. Got to taste
the same kind of apple you would bite
into when we met over the lunch
period. Would dream
of the scent you gave off
when you brushed against me
after school. Top of the ninth
and your mood would be riding on that boy
on the mound—mine affixed
to you by some kind of metal
pins and rawhide twine.
Time to read
a chapter in a novel, watch
a movie start
to finish (without interruption), listen
to anything but
songs from Nirvana’s Nevermind
on the radio. Time to tuck
the tributes, altered memories, grief between
pages of a journal
you’ve been rereading
(without interruption) for two months. Bible
studies will be held
on Sunday evenings in your favorite coffee house.
(He’ll still be dead.)
Those girls will continue to grow.
Sometimes leaves will turn and fall
at the same time.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 