Chilled by indecision—even a bad choice brings on
summer momentum. I might
go out after
dark. Could swallow flavored water while the camera
runs. Staged accidental
encounters are the new absence
of light
when I dig deep enough into this primitive season.
Expectations for the long arm
of light to cradle her—better
yet jolt her—into a wider frame
can only lead to one thing:
disillusionment
that after tonight everything begins
to shrink. Or, there’s another one: relief
that summer is poised to stretch across
the best spills and spans.
Birthdays are present
tense even when the honoree is past
tense. In a year’s time,
I will surpass him in living
years. It’s a lie
that we can’t catch up
to, surpass, one another. I make
no predictions. Stand still could be
a quality of light
or shade of blue. I can see
only glare—no faces reflected
in the atrium wall, could be
a window if
you’re into that kind of thing.
I may (dis)honor the memory
of our affair. No number
of lies will erase clouds
from a June sky. A man lies
in an empty garbage cart—the clean-up
crew waits for another festival
to end. Can a phone company’s window display
do justice to this first
skyscraper the City sent up
over itself? No one’s going to remember
I worked there too.
A walk on the just opened stretch
of High Line is hardly
the wild side. If this is my lizard
brain jotting down
these notes, I may as well slam
back another mug
of black coffee, check the time
on my cell every ten
minutes, keep walking
into fragmented images,
unconscious hues
of primitive thought. I’ll stick out
a forked tongue to hail
a cab for the memory
of other rides and rest
stops to be secured.
Enamor is a taste
more than a color. Extrovert
texture. Black cherry—there’s a hue.
Signage means more to her
than the shape
of these chairs. Positive thinking
is a song.
Free associate my home
with rehab. Go ahead. Ivy here entwines
a power line, a Jefferson Lines bus
gets towed. I’m on our only light
rail train traveling south. Will make an exit
by air. Wherever I go, I must
rehabilitate or stall out.
Burned out, abandoned with warnings that exhale
on the stern facade. One letter per pane, tagger’s red
paint spells it out for me:
E L E V A T O R
S H A F T
D O N O T
E N T E R Never mind
the barbed wire fence, I
wasn’t planning to make that leap. The clock
on that shuttered Romanian community center across
the street reminds me
it’s 5:45 pm
same as last fall and the visit before that. Still there will be
more stairs to climb.
Yesterday morning his brows, last
night armpit hair—adolescence breaks
opens my curiosity. Childless,
I take care not to steal
childhoods, not to smash
them against sea walls
to see what’s inside. Once
hormones begin to kick
in—give the boys the goods
to confound girls, other boys.
I get careless. No more promises
to make before civil twilight.
His brows came to me
in an early morning
dream—the phase between involuntary
twitching and vision adjusting
to new light. What was irresistible
becomes grotesque. Even I have limits
to exaggeration. My love is
not exponential.
Some of it becomes invisible. Still,
I am pleased to open
my eyes to engage expressions
as they appear.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 