I fly to LaGuardia
not Newark
because
even after all these years
since you left New Jersey
when you could no longer speak
or navigate your way
to the correct exit
and three years
since you left
the world altogether
I could not bear to walk past that spot
just beyond security
where you used to wait
for me—tears in your eyes,
mine too.
LaGuardia
not Newark
because
I won’t choke
on memories
through Queens
to Manhattan
or the Bronx.
“I love my free spirit.
I trust my creative power.
I generate the wind beneath my wings
and enjoy the journey.”
—Michael Nash Mantra
Since you died three years ago,
whenever I fly
I find you
in the clouds.
On this date, you have come to me
as a wave breaking
against a jetty
in Oak Bluffs,
as a young fox
darting along a beach road
on the farthest tip
of Cape Cod at dawn.
As I board another plane
bound for New York,
I wonder what form
you’ll assume this year.
Gulls don’t
get so high.
You might wait till I land.
The wrong season
for a Sandy Hook harbor seal
haul out.
No, something will soar
overhead if I can be
patient, still
as the Palisades.
Anything with wings, Dad.
Show me anything with wings.
“Throw the calendar away,
gonna find a jukebox of steel. . . .
Revelry in borrowed clothes.”
—Jay Farrar (from “Jukebox of Steel”)
Two rivers merge
to make a third.
No longer a prehistoric tool
made of flint, I am
a new sidescraper
made from an abandoned,
three-story coke works mill
115 feet longer
than the Empire State Building
is tall.
I don’t make fire
since I put down
the pack and lighter,
since I gave away my power
for the last time.
A parting gift
for a man
who doesn’t fear
borders or wormholes.
Two songs merge
to make a third
I hum from a train
as it rumbles through
the Rust Belt.
I’ve gotten on
the wrong one.
The Capitol Limited
not the Lake Shore Limited.
The Empire Builder runs
nowhere near here.
And two cities won’t merge
to make a home.
because
Minnesota boys
the first cool night in late August
and a blanket
pulled off the shelf
because
the Mississippi
any time of day or season
because
First Avenue
with its ceiling replaced
because
winter windchill
bragging rights
the first warm day
in April
maybe it’s May maybe June
because
Loring Park
Armajani’s Irene Hixon Whitney Bridge
John Ashbery
in both directions
because
sculptures by
Noguchi Shea Serra
Lake of the Isles
Cedar Lake Trail
Minnehaha Creek
because
the C.C.
because
Minnesota boys
Who will answer
this time?
Which one of me wants to tackle it
today?
I will.
I/we have no choice.
I/we say the same thing
each time asked.
Time is the ultimate
four letter word
scrawled on all the walls
of all the buildings
in all the cities
within all the worlds
we map
or make up.
The ultimate reverse
graffiti reveals
how much dirt we accumulate
within our own inventions.
Leave it to the scientists
and philosophers,
this poet (and this one and this one and)
hears an echo
split open in an alley
where a mangled chainlink fence
and rotting garbage in a dumpster
are proof enough for her
time does exist
inside this heart
where love and loss
slow dance all night
into a new day.
And it might rain.
I want you
to read me
all the time
even in the bath
even in your sleep
I’m so vain
I want you to want to believe
each poem is about you
they are about everyone
and no one
till the reader
enters the room
surveys the tile floor
wooden tables
plaster walls
painted cautionary yellow
chooses a chair
sits down
becomes part of the scene
an empty folding one
blocks an open window
its half-drawn shade
flaps in the breeze
She looks for lefthanders
near the border between
Minneapolis and Saint Paul,
between staying and leaving, between
walking and tumbling off, between
fade and fate.
She wants to find a way
to celebrate her invisible skin.
Invisible face. Invisible hair.
So invisible, she becomes
an imaginary friend
just like the one who built
mini-towns with her
in dirt and sand and gravel
on an island nobody owns.
She’s not talking
to herself; she’s just talking
to someone
who left the room
before her fingers began to stiffen
with arthritic self-awareness.
She takes selfies
in the nude. Deletes
the evidence. Thinks of you. Deletes
more evidence.
She crosses the Mississippi
on a train on a rainy August morning
looking for lefthanders—
finds a few.
As we kiss good-bye
in the middle of a Brooklyn street,
you whisper:
“Sleep with whomever you want.
Just don’t hold hands.”
For 31 years,
virgin palms press
against swinging doors,
against each other
in desperate agnostic prayer.
I hug other mourners
inside a church basement
when one of us leaves too soon.
I hear my name
expertly delivered
in a voice no one can touch.
I turn around
to face you—
my hands free.
“A writer is essentially a spy. . . .
With used furniture he makes a tree.
A writer is essentially a crook.”
—Anne Sexton (from “The Black Art”)
When we were lovers,
I didn’t know how
to wear lipstick.
When we were lovers,
we built and broke
our own code.
The Def Leppard
drummer still
used both hands.
Orwell’s novel
did not come true.
Ronald Reagan was president.
When we were lovers,
I had all the licenses
I would ever get—none.
When we were lovers,
you were thick,
I was snug.
We had no world
wide web. MTV was born.
Mark Zuckerberg, not yet.
We didn’t need replacements. Heard music
beneath stars, discovered our bodies’ perfect cadence
in a station wagon way-back.
When we were lovers,
house alarms went off
spontaneously.
When we were lovers,
eating ice cream was erotic—
didn’t give me stomach aches yet.
One bath almost shared.
One shower together
after three years of waiting.
We got locked inside a courtyard
outside a Brooklyn brownstone
and didn’t care.
When we were lovers,
a waft of ghostly smoke
occasionally hovered over the river.
When we were lovers,
we fought as intensely.
Almost.
We could reignite
as soon as one of us got off a plane
at the airport gate.
Thornton Pool had a high dive.
I belly-flopped off it.
You watched a swan glide down.
When we were lovers,
you would drive me home
at daybreak.
When we were lovers,
time stood still
but not for long enough.
When we were lovers,
we couldn’t keep our hands
off each other.
One letter got lost
for months.
Our timing was off.
Before 1950, making love
to one another could happen
through the mail without touching.
When we were lovers, we didn’t know how
three decades later we might submerge ourselves
in deep water to resuscitate the lost art.
to no one
and everyone
inside the ascenders
and descenders
of a word
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 