I am a new habit.
It’s Friday, and someone always expires
on a Friday. Old habits die
hard. Otherwise, they would be soft
inclinations not worth
overcoming. This pattern
language needs
no more words.
What Wants to Live Here (Day 3,002)
I challenge you
to an anthropomorphizing duel. How
do we know if the building is alive
or dead, if we have calculated our own life
cycle correctly? At dawn, our sickle-shaped
swords will whip up the air—slice
a few particles of uncertainty, strive
to kill these questions before
lunch. One of us isn’t going to make it
to the counter in time
to witness walls that talk.
Paul & Arthur
Their discussion continually boomeranged
back to the dialectic between body and soul—one can wait,
the other won’t last. And still as time passed,
it was that physical form he would choose. And still
I wonder about separation
anxiety, about the risk
in pulling things apart.
Speak To You
Cave walls inside
a candle prophesize fear
and anxiety lessening
as the flame flickers deeper
into itself. And do you recognize it—am I
about to embrace a moment
that ignited you a century ago? And you
100 years ahead, this could be yours.
Burning Fluid
How many walls will she paint orange
before the urge to find replacements
dissolves in spirit
of turpentine? It is a question she doesn’t need
to answer till other colors haunt
her, flash inside her eyelids
in jealous rages, till another violent act
unfolds flat against this bare surface.
South 13th
Each time I look down
that street it’s another U-Haul
truck that captures my eye
for minimal detail. Dead
of winter, dead center
of the block, this month—
someone gets up and moves
away. Or it’s someone else moving
in. The weave tightens
around messages that near
miss home.
Absent of Choking
You once said if I didn’t smell
like smoke I would smell
like sex. Now that the air has cleared,
I just want to smell
fresh coffee brewing
come morning, an old book fanning
open in the afternoon, traditional Tibetan
incense burning come evening,
rosewater splashed on my face
before I sleep.
Evening Skin
“Onstage the Scottish musicians begin to break the skin of the evening and the music fills the room—mandolin, guitar, fiddle.”
—Colum McCann, from Zoli
It doesn’t matter if it’s shattered
diamonds or glass she sees winking
in fresh snow to carry her home
after dark. This splinter
pain touches her left foot
where the big toe attaches itself
to the sole. Nothing there
but a nagging to remind her
she is no exception. Mortal—
with a limited number of steps, breaths—
she’ll strive to keep them
in unison as long as a splinter
moon allows.
The Smooth Mellow Pack
The color orange engulfs her
in hazy dreams—appears as a sheer
shawl to web her shoulders,
a pair of lace-up long boots
to hug her calves. It’s not the color
she has to relinquish
upon waking. Just the fog
that presses it down, packs it tight
against her chest.
Bourgeois Fiction (Day 2,993)
What she uses to wedge
beneath one leg to level
the table could be a match
book she no longer needs. Could be
a roll of used clichés she’s been saving
to stuff in his pipe. But it’s gone—ashes
have settled to the bottom
halfway across the country. The bowl
never held much to make it worth wasting
a light on. As for the rest, she’s busy
writing it down.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 