When Plan B could be
better than A, it’s time
to reconsider
the route you keep
choosing to scramble home.
Carousel at Lighthouse Point
Another chance for naked
thought escapes into a threatening
sky before it tips
into night. Nothing comes
of the gusts. What blows
over wasn’t as transparent
as she wished. Dangling
power lines frighten her
now as they did when
she ran all the way to the point
for a slow spin.
What They Call Normal
Sweeping in the nude (not
naked) has other implications
laid over hardwood. Who
gets to say when
a book’s a book isn’t
my question. Beneath
the chaise, the curvature
becomes pronounced. I may
be too modest to chase it out.
Not a One Is Blind
Fold up those black bat
wings, try not to break
any bones. Would I stay drier
with a mature adult
protecting me overhead?
Getting tangled
in hair is a myth. I could see you
if these clouds would disintegrate
is another. When I look up
it’s all concave and vital again.
No Enclosure
Her stomach won’t flip
to break hearts, she cannot
fathom being a begin
parenthesis without
a promise
of an end
somewhere down the ragged line.
That she can think circles
around herself
is gymnastics enough.
Another Circle Poem
Twenty-first century letter
boxers jump the fence
into a dog park, follow
text messages on the tiniest
chance they might match up
all the clues leading them
to the diamond ring
treasure. I’m back one
and a half centuries
with Emily still writing
“my letter to the World
that never wrote to me.”
Circle Poem
The last of the public
pay phones, a dial tone to nowhere
backwards in a dog
park is a hunt
for diamonds, is easier
for some to fathom. Me,
I don’t know how
to wear them, am seeking
other gems.
Connecting Flight
Free to walk in the rain
in a park—to imagine a dial
tone from the sole remaining
pay phone on the southeast corner
where the sun might have crept in
another afternoon. It might dry up
in time for true blues
on a plaza, for a baseball game
to play out in a new stadium
where birds get in free.
Haunting (Day 2,757)
Incidental instrumentation
is a snare drum dance
on a low stage. The frequency gentle
and occasional, the result
a steady and uninhibited linger. Blueprints
to buildings sometimes reveal their windows
upside down, sometimes superimposed
lines pull a stillness over the implied glass.
Merce Cunningham paused on film
in three movements, the music plays
without instrumentation—Cage composed
and decomposing. The lyricism of the moment
collides with an unrecoverable
past. Staggered evidence of feet once buried
in sand, and I’m six and not concerned
with the inevitability
of high tide.
Because the Roosevelt Island Tramway Was Closed
This bleeding is a reminder—
not all watermarks spring
from water, not all spills
are toxic, not all rain washes
away grit, not all words
make it to the next day. She’ll do her best
to read another message
that might hang in suspension
without slipping
out of place. She could become
in place if she refused
to grimace over outpourings.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 