A bed of pine needles
because it’s Massachusetts.
You wear a shirt studded
with diamond-shaped snaps
two nights in a row. I’ll never tell
you how I like the gray
in your beard
the way I told him never
to shave his off
30 years ago. I won’t mix
you up. The music is
immortal. The flowers he grew
were something else.
Superstition and grooming
don’t mix in graveyards.
Urn selection can be a fun activity
for two—no more. Decisions
made during grief
break over our heads
as lightning on a warm October night.
A thunderous silence
leaves me counting
to digits even you
hadn’t planned to touch.
Only you could get away
with that haircut—you
really didn’t. If I met your brother
in a hallway or on a baseball field
would I see your face, hear your deeply accented
laugh, touch that beard
you shaved off
too soon? Would he know
why this stranger observes
his every move? I continue
to risk being
misunderstood for one of those
moments we used to share before
gravity and all other laws overtook us.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 