And then finally the rain
comes to crash night into its lover
lighting to pronounce a distant crack
of ecstasy. I won’t go
to the window. I know. Tomorrow
morning the world
will smell of lilacs and the memory
of wet concrete
and bark. And into it
I will walk around a corner
ready to give desire
another chance.
Coincidence? In the hours before you died,
my cat trapped a bat in the claw
foot tub. Played with it almost
to death. When I called a trusted friend to rescue it/
me, we both naively hoped
it might fly into the midnight sky—broken
wing and all. And the hope that I might see you
glide through this life one more time was dashed
against unforgiving pavement in that moment—the one
I wouldn’t know I would desire
to retrieve for years.
Just as suddenly as it resurfaces
in some stirred-up
grit loosened
by spring, it can sink
into a new dormancy
nourished by her calm
flesh. It can but hasn’t. Alert
and proud, this desire
has begun to float.
A nose gets cut. Bandaged.
His nose. Not for me
to know how. He does bleed
real blood to match
the true color of his song.
I don’t know how. All bodies
frighten me
with their precious mechanisms.
The way they break down—
His, mine. It can be
too much to bear. My desire
drains blue.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 