Radiant orchid
throughout each season—even now
when rain can’t quite
wash away the most hardened dirty
snow. Somewhere the temperature
drops just enough at night
before a warming settles in. Somewhere
someone sings,
“California Dreamin’”
to coax things along. Someone
somewhere is still searching
for a word that rhymes
with orange.
It could be a horse’s white
mane that hangs
over an outdoor
sconce. Week after
week, it doesn’t melt. Is it
permanent? She hears
a recording of her own
voice and wonders who
might want to curl up
inside it till it thaws.
“Whose flame/Is the imprisoned lightning.”
—Emma Lazarus, from “The New Colossus”
In a slow return to daylight after hours, she winks
at March and flirts
with her own promises to wake up
a tiny piece
of dirt. Hers is an impassioned lightning
that could strike
even now—before spring.
* also from Emma Lazarus’ “The New Colossus.”
In an era when buildings opened
with zippers, she fastens her life together
with safety pins. Then she hears them drop
one by one on dried mud. Inside
gets entangled in the outside—a blur
with or without corrective lenses. Pricked fingers,
the aromatics of March come next.
Who waits
for the river
to rise rises
above reds
to reach clay
tinted sky. Who
runs from dry
spells into March
gusts and shifted
light shifts
with each new
calibration.
This window
then that becomes
highlights for whomever
remains.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 