Clay on their faces—
naked gestures
before jumping
off those cliffs
into the wild
wash. It’s not
over till our giant
returns for his rock
collection and pipe.
Cracking Up
Oceans rise
by twelve feet
by when. How to buy
time and use it
to buy more. Who
is selling those years,
months, days, hours. Minutes
available on eBay
to the highest
bidder. Too late. Childhood
memories of a shoreline
cottage won’t wash away
with its stoop. Is it really
too late?
Ain’t Paul (or a Fresh Tale of Two Cities To Come Soon)
The S slipped
or becomes
silent a month before
the Green Line begins
service between the two
cities. Crosses the river
in light rail stitching.
She saw the test train return
to the larger downtown
this morning. Her faith
in imperfection runs
parallel to
coincidence and letters
that sometimes drop
off without warning.
Interrupts
A set of keys
left in the freezer, another
in the palm
of her hand. Doors
open on contact
in her dream. And the lover
(there’s always a lover)
she’s about to
wake to
jangling metal
is strangely
familiar.
Isometrics
Some days all I can feel is
my father’s handshake. Called a vise
grip by more than one old
beau. An addiction to finger exercises
he did while running
every morning. They kept my own
hands occupied
in the early weeks after quitting
those smokes
he hated viciously. And I still practice
them now that I have returned
to the road and to fight
back tears. No matter how many sets
I do, memories are all that’s left. And the way
they left his mind
too soon.
Non Sequitur Invasion
Born between
the UK and US
release of the Beatles’
“I Want
to Hold Your Hand,”
she never knew
life before rock
‘n’ roll. Buds on a few
trees—a week
of rain has a disturbed
purpose. She has been
loved this early
in May. Parades with gigantic
puppets have not
been a good sign. Or,
no message to read
at all. It won’t
storm tomorrow.
3D
If I could
print you
a new hand
to hold
mine, I would
still walk alone
up this hill. You would
rescue a baby
squirrel falling
from bare branches,
and the day
would become salvage.
Netting
From the street,
she sees a hammock affixed
to some bare
elms in a city
park. A how to live
in urban green before
it greens. Bad
poetry never makes good
architecture. Good
architecture makes good
poetry if
the intentional flaw
doesn’t compromise
the structure. She wonders
how tight
those knots are tied.
Entrain
The invisible
line between
walking and running
talking and singing
touching and pressuring
scent and stench
breeze and gust
sleeping and dying
to live is
lift off.
Reading Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing in a Bar
In Lagos, Portugal.
She thought she was so
adult to be
drinking alone
with Ms. Sarton
still alive in a foreign country.
28 years ago
this August, she hasn’t been
back. No longer goes
to bars with or without
May. There was a bartender
in that story—but not this poem.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 