To reinstall a river
from the north
without proper execution
could dry up
hearts and drown
last ditch efforts
to believe
in the truth
about these falls.
To rent a story you can’t
call your own
is no less
an act of gossip
than the squatter’s jaw
motion on hot,
moonless nights.
Could have been a splice
there instead. A second
difference in the time
it takes to melt
this scene without
an actor into a bacon
strip I wouldn’t
eat but allow myself
to smell is
all it takes
to turn a life
around and back
over green rushes before
summer scorches brown.
Found footage, a blue filter
to distinguish night
from its counterpoint.
That these black-and-
white flicker cycles
could be finite, she’s beginning
to see how
the distinction will snap
away, all filters exposed
without purpose, no farewell
or final letter to the moon
and everything it contains. A private explosion
without a witness, her evening
will come.
Dyed bone is why
she pauses before she
goes too far. Whose or what kind
disturbs her
casual circuit through an arts
and crafts fair behind a bar—
coffee not whiskey. Burnt
red not dirty
white. And the adult
only
photos in locket
frames interest her least of all.
Afterthoughts dance a revel before
me in their borrowed tunics
and repurposed top
hats. I would like to see
that cellar retrofitted
beneath the surface
that cannot be defined. I
imagine how it would be
to submerge an old Airstream—
my silver bullet travels
just under the earth’s skin. I cringe
but then applaud
the rising courage that gets
partially skimmed off.
Vo-tech, high-rise
stack of comic book
spines, staples get removed.
I’m not ready to give
up Babel or what Borges said.
I won’t slam.
Not built for long-term love
excursions, she seeks a glimmer
in a warmer gray—couldn’t
draw a picture to convey her way
through an open door.
To fiddle with a lock and swing
into a door jam
is
the extent
of her inclination
to reconfigure lines
and what might get shaded
inside. She’s not interested
in that constraint—others float
to the surface
of this potion
she may, or may not, number.
My thighs have turned
a bloodless white. A dry
heaving wind Marilyn
Monroes my dress. A tiny
globe exposed, I walk inside
city limits—checking,
checking, checking
those boundaries I installed
with bare feet
and the promise of late
July rain. A voice
bellows and gusts
from the bottom
of my back
pack. I won’t
reach it
in time. Solitude has sprung
loose again.
Tone deaf, color
blind to the hues
of a man’s gestures. Bored,
shy, turned
on, off—who can
tell? Gossip dug out
of a dumpster, laid
in the mid-summer grass
to dry out, to cure well
enough for a taste. I don’t eat
meat. That’s no excuse.
I’m human. I share
secrets—only my own.
Someone drove a Nash
rambler into my heart.
See these burn scars. I’m knitting them
into poems fast
as I can. Fear is
a cross-stitch I’m
still learning how to work
into a pattern. Perfection
is for the gods.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 