If this is intimate—this
niche tucked inside an atrium—if
this sliced open
building represents the way
we live now, then I wonder
what that old pair of black dress
pants left in the snow
outside an even older church
means. Tried and hung
sneakers have dangled from obsolete
telephone lines above shadowed
movements—guilty and otherwise.
Earthquake swarms that go
bump in the night as I stumble
through darkness in a jumpsuit
that predicts how I will
feel in 30 years. Can no more tell
how any of us will rate
on the pain scale—emotional, physical,
or spiritual—than you can
know when we’ll go down
stairs without a care
in the world—this or that or any
other one that may or may not
be spinning out there. But
these guesses are infinite—and free.
in echoes. And they walk down a corridor lined with portraits. Hung
inwardly on the walls. Stale messages
from adolescent bullies pull
at the corners of my mouth, clouds dump rain from the blue sky
of my eyes. I hear vice whispered in this escape to a forgotten stone
impasse with portico leanings. The men detach
themselves from those walls to march
through their namesake colonnade. Frames begin to rattle with the motion
of female portraits turning toward me. Face after face to remind me I can touch mine. It is still here
along with life-affirming sadness to strengthen my limbs and salted resolve.
They walk down a corridor lined
with portraits hung inwardly
on the walls. Stale messages
from adolescent bullies pull
at the corners of my mouth,
clouds dump rain from the blue sky
of my eyes. I hear vice whispered
as I escape to this portico—a forgotten
impasse. When the men detach
themselves from those walls to pass
through their namesake colonnade,
frames begin to rattle
as portraits of women turn toward me. Face
after face to remind me I can touch
mine. It is still here
along with life-affirming sadness
to strengthen my limbs.
This drive to go back to excavate
a basement after the building has been standing
graveless (shallow or deep)
for a hundred years is just the kind
of thinking that gets me
out of bed on cold winter mornings.
Without tobacco, without alcohol, this is
what’s left of my underground.
As she gathers lilies for a wicker basket
hitched to a bicycle she used
to associate with him, pebbles fall
at her feet. Comfort comes in dreams
of a familiar burden.
These small memory pieces become worry
stones she rubs to release herself
from a desire to live beneath
that boulder again. Grace comes
awkwardly to the shore.
Three thousand days, three thousand nights, hands off
bottles, a mouth that forms
new words like foreign objects
on the tongue. This counting is not done
on fingers or in the head. It springs forth
mid-tally from a soul
she can count on most days.
She mourns the hyphens
that have rubbed off, worn away, merged
into their attachments. Language
breathes and breaks
in two—always to be healed
later. Scars visible
but not mentioned. Syllabic
grafts in time, she gives herself
permission to talk
in her sleep—to herself,
to you. And you could reply
if you believe it’s right.
If I am everyone
in this dream, who are you
to tell me how
it should end? The use
is mine—and disuse. You are
a figment trapped
in a smoke ring
I rarely produced. You are
the one my unconscious
heart won’t forget.
Winter afternoon naps
are the best. Caged trees
in snow banks stand
for a patience
I’m still learning to wake into.
Let this be my plea
for relevance: be it subway
or skyway, I can see myself
out. I know when to exit.
I exist.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 