Don’t take this strong
black coffee
from us—the ones
who have fallen
from branches,
the ones who land
on our feet, the ones
who count bruises
as little blue blessings
about to bloom,
the ones who may become
overripe. We’ve been so dry—
don’t take away this thirst.
May 15
day two under
the weather
without a ship
without waves
without a horizon
to save me.
BB King and Franz Wright
have died
I’m hiding
beneath rain
that doesn’t fall
and Emily died
on this day
and Walt registered
Leaves of Grass
and the list goes on
as I wait
for a downpour
Her Brackish Breath
Wakes him
to flashbacks. All that
water he wouldn’t
swim in: the length
of the Mississippi,
the Hudson flowing
both ways—half estuary,
half river. The East
River. Who would dare? Who
sings that song?
It’s rhetorical. It’s all
muffled underwater.
No Apology
Maybe I don’t want to wait
for you to resurface.
One dive off
a broken pier
is enough
warning. Murky water
won’t tell on you
the way she did. She didn’t
hold back—mirrors,
selfies, Instagram, cruel
works. I don’t want to
wait. Won’t say a word.
This instrumental
will be
the lost anchor.
Cycloid
Piano is levitas;
Kahn is gravitas.
We all play roulette
sometimes without knowing it. Feudal
play is
a chain mail wall
that responds
to touch. The curve
traced by a point
on the rim
of a wheel
as it rolls along
a straight line
without slipping. Slipping
is not required. When
does a slip become
a relapse? You are the most
imperfect auditorium
absorbing and reflecting
the sound of my mind
as it hovers over deep sleep.
In the left margin,
fish scales climb
or descend.
When you write
yourself out
of the story, it becomes futile
to try to sneak back in. The acoustics
in the church
where we held my father’s funeral
captured too much
bounce and echo. No one
understood a word
we were saying. Is
an omniscient narrator
a better bouncer
than an intrusive one?
Who is more reliable?
What about the polyphonic?
I remember
writing the Ecstatic
Uptown Chronicles
in fragments with you
over drinks (and drugs)
one winter. The first
one. I was lost. I was found.
I was a wretch—so were you.
It was
exquisite—
that corpse
of a song
we couldn’t resuscitate.
Pulling glass
from his skull,
he stands
a chance
of relocating
his compass
without
a GPS.
I am
so invisible
I am
free to
If voices are hereditary,
I sing like
the dead.
The first
bridge I fell
in love with
was over
troubled water.
No more art
in the schools,
we make it here
from glitter and bat shit. Crazy
how guano
fertilizes the most
unlikely plots.
A chicken shits
on a construction paper
bingo board. You pin it
to the wall
next to the velvet
painting of a cowboy
and call it
No time to fix
errant capitalization.
I remember
first encountering
Frank Lloyd Wright
while dancing
on that bridge
over troubled water.
Architects may come
architects may
All the news
I need
is in the weather
report that is
fit to print. I am
the only living boy
in New York. I miss both—
the boy and the City.
She has one eye
looking due east,
the other northwest.
She says she can
sew him back together
if you want. Do you
want? We all want
to go
where there’s
no sound
some nights,
don’t we?
20 Degree Angle
For a little over a year, I crossed
the river twice
a day. East to west. West to east. Or,
more precisely
northeast to southwest—
you get the idea.
When I say
The River
with a capital T, capital R,
I believe you know
which one. When I say
The City, capital
T, capital C,
you know.
Thousands of miles
east. Those daily
crossings were loaded
with a weight of sadness
I denied. A denial
I refused to skip
across the surface
of the water
because I never learned
how. People tried
to teach me. I couldn’t get
the hang of it. Never trusted
myself with a flat, cold
stone in my hand.
The way I don’t trust
myself behind the wheel. So by bus,
by bike, or by foot
I would make it
to the other side. Was I
safe? Did I know my world
would become
visibly cracked, thickened,
unskippable soon?
And The City
its own poem
packed with shimmering
smooth surprise
to be opened gently
as a paper fan.
AA at AWP
you are my people
in this room
strangers all of you
relief in our eyes
in this room
for an hour
egos to be checked
at the door
name tags break
anonymity our
introductions don’t
no one’s reading them
in this room
cocktail parties
get going in the ones
on either side
we all have one of two
(or both) last names
beginning with “a”
our noms de bouteille
Thanks to The New Guard Review and The Writer’s Hotel for this opportunity
Shy Stingray
Oh, the stress
of being on display,
of going
to the mall
and having to stay
there. Where? Of
America. Oh,
the survival stories
to tell. If
we do that sort
of thing. Tanked. Touch
me. I’m not ready
to be touched.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 