Fear ghosts,
god, graffiti, guardian
angels, and
home.
ghosts
After School Prey
Rabbits and voles whip
across a city sidewalk. Still,
the leaves don’t fall.
I can almost feel the heat
of your tobacco-flavored breath
against my cheek
as you whisper ghostly
nothings in my ear. Still,
the leaves don’t fall.
Scars
She’s ready to declare:
I believe
in ghosts. She’s ready
to admit:
I believe in ghosts
so I might encounter you
in the hallway of that haunted
old school building.
If everything could be repurposed,
she’d like to be slate
under your chalk next.
Guardian Angel Dust to Dust
I enter the quiet
life through a seam
in this wall. First time I heard
your voice was a homecoming. Tell me
if ghosts speak. With a pronounced
accent? Is the language
of flowers reserved for them
the way I’ve reserved myself
for what’s left
of you? Memory is seamless.
Air Mail Through an Open Window
If I die tonight, will we
become lovers by tomorrow
evening? Civil twilight to entwine
two severed spirits. Counting
finally done. To drink or not, new
wine or old—it won’t matter. That age gap
sewn up once and for all. If
I make it till morning, I will continue
to keep a record
of what might have been.
From West 15th
In rain and close
air, the empty park haunts
her view of what could
have been. More solitude
than romance, determination
not despair, yet this damp
quietude distorts all patterns. Subdued
till a lone man trots along
the southern path. A leather jacket
will need peeling
in sudden heat. And still
she can’t see where ghosts go
to sweat it out.
in medias res redux
Don’t cut your hair, pull a cap
over the lengthening. Invoke
one ghost and two
other legends still kicking
around what haunts them
at night when stairs are steep,
a cellar two stories deep. Narrative
or none, consistent not
likely, they do what they want. I
see you do too and so much younger. You
may catch up to the age
of your soul, but not yet.
Would Be Roadkill
Either these falls are shrinking
or this river’s high.
Traffic stops
for you when you no longer trust. You’re walking
across blind
spots, a stone embankment and swerve
to tease the dead. You have predicted
you would join those left-handed ghosts
when the right of way
becomes cursed, your body,
upon impact
a weightless parcel
through early spring
air. It’s always an April day
just a half hour before
sunset—civility
in dimming lights dancing off
city streets so many miles before
the skyline disintegrates
into a watery horizon. It’s guess work,
and it’s hard to know when it will crest.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 