More than the foot I broke
outside Van Cortlandt Park.
And the friends
and family and
strangers who visited
me up there. To be at the end
of the line
at night and first
on the train the next
morning, to be safely wedged
northwest, to be rich
in two hours’ worth of rhythmic
thought each day is
to be more than the sum
of 160 steps up.
Digital monsters
with moustaches, power
outlets in the café
floor, the names
we never got
right—that door
ought to be
locked. Or, then, not
at all. Why did this
way get invented
if no one is
allowed to go
this way? That
would be called
the last
exits to exist.
No recipes for Pinterest. No nails
for the resurrection
of Washington
Avenue. It’s really a boulevard
without the reach
of Broadway. I remember
the way I lived
in the Bronx. That elevated #1
line dropped shadows,
then hints, of the plains
I might choose to cross
before decades erased
my interest
in pins and collage.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 