My criminal act concealed
for now we roam beneath bare
branches. Follow the river down
for a radical blossoming
before another cyclone wrecked
hillside. Sneezes for no reason—
there’s never a reason
to be so coy. Forgiveness begins
at the head of the falls.
Pathos or a compulsion
to turn everything outside
into me. I want to steal your pain—
relieve you—but
it’s a lie. I cannot feel
the flare-ups erupting
inside your muscles, joints, trust. Only
a greedy desire to conceal
my own fear inside walls
of an ancient cave
I’ll never enter. Not to see the primitive
finger flutings overhead—I become entangled
in this grotesque silence.
This addiction to nothing is not
the same as an addiction
to air. Living off
coffee and apples
without sleep or shade
is another one. Close
the mouth for good. Lockjaw love
won’t sustain me—nor will you.
He said she said
there would be no more
words running loose
down paved streets. Potholes
in the sky
over Wisconsin wreck her
concentration as she flies
into the silence
of colors and shapes
ready to be made.
Let the cantillation begin.
Not the way to start a day. Full frontal
male nudity on the screen
last night left her
cold. She would be so lucky to have him
appear in her dreams—
and yet. Just show a little ankle, a bare
forearm, the back
of his thigh. No more holding it in—time
to wash her hair.
Bucked on her own bicycle
through Central Park in the rain. Blue
Man Group was still blue
babies recovering from that original choke
without tubes. Never knowing
the price of gas anywhere. She could no more
identify the car you drive than you could
label her a type of flower that grows through cracks
in the sidewalk. Could be any day—she chooses
to call this one her station.
These immobilization fees
don’t cover what she does
with her left wrist. Flicks serifs
off letters the way she used to release
ashes from her smokes, the way
I might dismiss her
without understanding what she might be
building in that empty lot. April snow lasts
only so long—then she’ll write this off too.
Her nervous system’s high
whine, his circulating blood a low
hum, their silence won’t come
the way they imagined
under these rafters at dawn. This return
to audible reality—a compulsion
to let the breath be known—weighs
on her as she steps off the back
porch. Onto pavers seeping
mud, her feet adjust to the sway. The rain
did not stop, but that wasn’t it.
Her disappearance completes
the arc of narrative
in light better than words.
As he disappears
behind a mountain, she sighs
a sigh weighted in sadness,
in regret, in relief. As she remembers
each step they took
toward the bluff before night blanketed them
in desire, she sees a gull
on the rock she had reserved
for them. No longer a them,
she turns her back
to the ocean—no longer in need
of more salt.
Once was a smoker
who no more. Planes take off
over her head, so she won’t
sleep, so she’ll be repulsed
by the smell of her former
self seeping through the door
clearance. In the retelling,
this story grows wings, extra
limbs, Medusa locks (larger than
life only through a water
glass magnifier), drawn-out pauses
over the city map she secretly reads
in the palm of her left
hand. Second or third wife, some of us
lose track in the translation
that gets written down
by mistake. This is no Torah
rich in color and lineage.
That story is not hers.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 