When she disappears
into the atmosphere, will you
remember the shape her mouth was in
when she last said
your name, when she stepped back
from that kiss? A poet skirts
in and around surfaces
seeking a place to attach herself to.
It’s a barnacle
life—she’s always preferred the underside
of piers.
Saudade isn’t saudade
if it is satisfied. When she least expects it,
other dreams come
into focus under the lights. Dust
of desire becomes frenzied
particles she won’t try to collect. She’s reaching
over the fence with its crumbling limestone
foundation to touch another’s—
carefully stacked against the wrought-iron grille.
She won’t see
the Atlantic tomorrow,
but she’ll get very close.
Inspiration in the spit
laden air, in the sequence
of events from lake to balcony
to converted house to nailing down
these recalcitrant emotions
with a red hammer
(yes, it must be red).
I’m no butterfly
catcher, am afraid
to pin down wings
gently with my thumb.
I still need to let them fly
off to endanger you
to my vulnerable side.
A writer loves
trees. This is the irony—how
we all come to love
our victims in the end.
Her gifts come in crumpled
sheets, quick jottings
on the feathers of red-winged
blackbirds to pin
her heart
on her bared shoulder.
No tattoos—this is
the thing itself. Not a needle
and inked recollection of another
person or place. She’s almost ready
to ask:
Do you wish to receive?
To beg, borrow, or steal
for this, to swing in an inked
playground, to live life
as a prayer opening
into another garden’s bloom,
to identify the shape
of a tiny island
now succumbed to a wetlands
birthright, to be willing
to start over
each morning
is what remains.
Somewhere way uptown
“Bird Lives.” Barefoot
and in love, two dart
through wet cement.
Pen pals will be
spawned. Stenciled
broken promises, the Bronx
could have come crumbling
down. But it’s held on
for the ride. When the last
of the writing on the wall
rolled along those tracks,
I arrived ready
to be winded
by those step streets.
I didn’t know it
would be the shape
shifting that would catch me
in the throat.
This is different. This is
personal. This is my die
hard era. That step
street terrace dares me
to climb away
from those subway tracks,
exposed for miles, to identify
a graffiti memory I believed
they had erased
with the old #1 cars.
New Jersey’s Palisades spill
onto the other side where Wave
Hill becomes more than a label
on a Google map. How many women drink
their own tears
when they reach
this far north? When they think of Redbirds
and that combat steel skin? I am
not alone—but seeking solitude’s prayers
for grace. Limestone retaining walls
and brownstone facades
hold in echoes of their Portland,
Connecticut, quarry
origins. I swam in it
and thought I would drown
in that unfathomable thirst.
Whoever rescued me then
could need some of that now. I wouldn’t know.
Mine has become a visitor’s ascent.
I dwell in possibility’s prairie
now, its river a street lined with myth and mud
and messages I’m eager to decode.
Her full length
mirror got smashed
in the trunk
of an old black
Buick. The cheval glass
she replaces it with
trots beside her no matter
what terrain holds her
captive next. Her cat refuses
to admire himself,
or her, in it.
She wishes she had that courage.
Just a roll over
and under time,
I’ve been working on
working through it
these past seven years.
No tunnels or bridges
over ravines to dramatize
my life. The course
has been steady
as grace that floats
in the inner harbor
where surfing is a bust.
I’ve been giving
this big river in the middle
the time of day—saw a heron
create shadows over Loring Lake
with its wing span. I might be ready
to take that risk, might spread
my silhouette over the bell tower
before civil dawn breaks.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 