She could return to the man
who dances with praying
mantises. Or, to the water—colder
on the second day. Or,
another man
she hasn’t spoken to
in over 20 years. She sees him—does he
see her? She imagines
how she might reinvent
his gaze. How he would look
underwater when the ocean
has calmed. Or, what he’d do
if a fox started following him.
Now she doesn’t even know
which man she means.
It’s all a wild ride
that begins in a dinghy
her uncle named after her.
Flashing
red and white light
above wild clay cliffs
will fade to memory without
rescue.
The counting may stop,
the spinning through
a thousand seasons
in a day may
become a memory. Or,
it won’t. Who
can predict
how my feet
will move
on the island
at dawn.
Multicolored book
trucks still roll
into view. She muzzles
herself as she drifts
to a one-room
library circa 1970. Rain dazzles
the surface
of the island. The scent
of Mylar, settled-in
type, a lilac
perfume on the librarian
who reads
Blueberries for Sal
to a circle
of restless children. Next stop,
next town, the Flying Horses
to ring themselves off.
Then it fades away.
A cold spell snaps
into the first
heat wave
of the season. Which season?
An approach
by air
rather than
by sea
could open
those island gates
she has been eyeing
for as long
as she has been walking
without a crutch.
Dumptruck sings “Get off
my island.” Used to be
my refrain even though
I’ve always known no one
(especially me) can really own
it. Just missed going to college
with one Dumptrucker. Shared a cab
from the Lower East Side to Prospect Heights
early one Sunday morning with another.
An oral history gets written
down. What gets lost
in translation becomes ghost
poems that only recite
themselves under waxing
crescent moons. But when they do,
you can hear them echo
up freshly rained-on empty streets
with titles like “urban spring” and “long live
the lighthouse keeper.”
It was an English sheepdog
on the island. I got tangled
in the wire—cut across
the tender part
of the ankle. Left
a scar next to the skin
I would permanently mark
later with a plastic
razor. On the same island.
And those nautical rope
bracelets with ends
fastened by fraying
and burning. I had
one of those too.
It revolved around Boston,
the Cape, Amherst, the Vineyard, Woburn,
an entire state—
our common ground. You—
with your accent and clearly delineated roots. Me—
with a brief history,
my mother’s story, and an incurable longing
no word in English
could contain. All of our plotting
and heightened talk went nowhere beyond
imagination. Now that I know
you are back home, I’ll fly
East so we can finally spend a moment
together on this sacred turf. You—
ashes. Me—alive
more than ever, ready to be enough
for the both of us.
Whatever happened to Dumptruck? What
got lost in the Portland quarry has been
recycled into Brooklyn brownstone tall
tales. I used to shout: “Get off
my island” too. Followed by the refrain:
“No one owns
the land.” Thought I was so clever
discovering her getaway
path—used to be mine. You didn’t want
to take it till it became
hers. And definitely no one owns
the water between—no matter
what anyone says. That includes you
singing or talking in your sleep.
Bumping against the half century
mark, she recalls (it’s time for that—right?)
a large wooden hour
glass she used to tip. Did it really
take 60 minutes for every last grain
of sand to slip through
that mouthless bottle
neck? She imagines
her grandmother would collect
jars of sand from the rocky beach
that doubled as their waterfront
cottage’s front yard—a promenade
shrinking into a cool rippled
bay. Not a surfer’s surface. She would be
Grandma’s little helper—eager
to pick out bits of sea
glass and chipped shells
for her own bragger’s collection
to tote back to the Midwest
at summer’s end. How did she do it—get the sand
into that perfectly narrow glass
female figure? It probably wasn’t her
doing after all. But she likes to recollect
images as she pleases to pronounce:
The imagination is not dead. It’s alive
and confidently working its way
into the 21st century. And no creeping
tidal shift will wash it away. Her hands have begun
to wrinkle like that old woman’s. And she realizes
this might not be so bad after all.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 