I sit beneath a painting of Kerouac
in thick shades
of gray and try to digest
the fact that I am older than he
will ever be. I should
be so privileged to pass
Emily and Virginia. I’ll prefer
mine lilac and thinner
than the rim of ice
hovering along these northern banks
of the Mississippi. This January
moves unnaturally fast.
Riding the rails through
an afternoon comes
easier than staying
put face
to face with imminent
death. Or not. To those
gone but not
gone, she says
these tracks are her prayer.
* From Jack Kerouac’s Big Sur
“Soaked in the blood and black of thousands of dead bugs. We smelled our clothes deeply.”
—Jack Kerouac, On the Road
What color
is your blood, she asks
her grandmother instinctively.
The answer comes on strong
as a tall shot
of Polish vodka: black. Absence
or all wavelengths of light,
it’s so hard to tell
in this reflection against skin.
“I made love to her under the tarantula.”
—Jack Kerouac, On the Road
Beams and beliefs
before the bottom
fell out
and I became just
another casualty.
It’s not the fur—it’s the dander.
“What is the Mississippi River?—a washed clod in the rainy night, a soft plopping from drooping Missouri banks, a dissolving, a riding of the tide down the eternal waterbed . . . down along . . . and out.”
—Jack Kerouac, On the Road
Heavy legs won’t lift
the feet so easily over
cobblestoned walkways
on the West Bank. I make believe it’s winding
north, but I’m the one
doing the twisting slowly upward. The water flows
south over falls that used to be
natural spilling below. Louisiana
steam has backwashed against the current
to fill up this Minnesota atmosphere.
It could happen. Anything is possible. Weather is everywhere—
weather is god. I am everywhere
weathering god.
“Waiting like a longbodied emaciated Modigliani surrealist woman in a serious room.”
—Jack Kerouac, On the Road
She who passes
the art test will be cursed
with elongated worry—the weight
of aluminum confused
with its atomic
number 13. She never believed
a number could sink her
dream. Has not encountered quick
sand, is not willing to take
the risk. She takes high
bridges over vehicles to knock
the wind from her diaphragm
of fear, pauses abnormally long
before crossing
any street. Then she runs a quick
rodent race across, laughing
all the way
at herself. She knows how
to do that—has been
doing it for years.
Even as she prepares her face
for that stranger she believes
would catch her before
she spilled over a cliff,
she giggles at the distortion
in the mirror.
“Poetry doesn’t know:
The air conditioner
Not in use in winter
Is like my hopes—
Half in, half out.”
—Jack Kerouac, from “Richmond Hill Blues” (Book of Blues)
I have no air
conditioner. No
dishwasher. I have no washing
machine. I am half
in, half out—don’t
take pity on me
because I don’t cook
down suburban roads
in an SUV. I want no mercy
meals from anyone—
not even Kerouac. He’s
dead. I am sitting in
my own lap
topped to wait
for the right moment
to cast a warm glow.
“I almost called these poems
Pickpocket Blues
because they are the repetition
by memory
of earlier poems
stolen from me
b y t w e l v e t h i e v e s.”
—Jack Kerouac, from the 2nd Chorus of “Orizaba 210 Blues” (Book of Blues)
She doubts her bones
will be put on display. Sees
how she is blessed. To be a thief
in this time is what’s left. If he channels you
to music, how will she tune in, listen,
take away what she can
to call her own? If possession
is nine tenths, she has her doubts
about the other tenth—does believe
it has something to do with the shape
of the moon and whether she bothers
to look for it each night. Did she steal
that one too?
“I stand on my head on Desolation Peak
And see that the world is hanging
Into an ocean of endless space.”
—Jack Kerouac, from the 1st Chorus of “Desolation Blues” (Book of Blues)
Prone to motion sickness, I’ve looked
for adjustments. How to encounter the rolls
and curves without losing myself
when I have a suspicion
I should do just that. How to
accept this condition, this disease
of being human without
somersaulting over the bluff. How to drop
everything I battle gravity
over to let stillness in the center
of a wild wind be my single garment. How to be
a mammal without a thick coat
of fur. How to be upright
on two leathered feet. How? Like this:
I’ll let the blood rush
to my head without blushing.
You swim in the biggest one
of a chain
of lakes. Don’t fear
the consequences. There your head goes
popping through the surface
then bubbling back under. You
were adamant—you don’t
like the tone of Kerouac’s poems. So there you go
through water without salt,
through muck
seen and unseen. I could not be
so brave. I’d rather splash
through an ocean without narrative,
would rather let sound
carry me
than the other way around.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 