Twenty years into this
relocation west
of the Mississippi, I will
become the original
version of Another
Girl, Another Planet.
Just for today, no
cover. And maybe tonight.
And perhaps the next
full moon lighting
up the river’s only
natural falls.
Public pianos everywhere—
on the airport baggage
claim level, outside the convention
center entrance, inside the city
center second floor lobby. Where’s the one
to play in open air
in the park under an old elm
near the dandelion
fountain? Not there yet.
It was not my choice
to collapse, says
the bridge in pieces
on the west
bank. A strip
of purple light
strikes a pose
across her face. And
she wonders
how it feels to drop
guilt so easily
on vacant land.
A sculpture outside
another restaurant
that didn’t make it
celebrates a robust
dance in bronze. Limbs
will support a partner’s need
to cry beneath clouds.
Will they break
now or tonight
when reminiscing has begun?
Whose weather will make
the better spin? Some cities
may tie.
She can catch the train
at the next station down
the line. Still sit forward
and watch future
vistas become now.
A national cemetery with endless
rows of evenly spaced
headstones. The mother’s there
and the father she never knew. But
not the son.
Yesterday was another
one. Twenty-one
years—but why keep
a tally? Yesterday
I heard his signature
song come tumbling out
of that Irish pub
on the mall. Part of that romance
on public transportation
series. The only kind I could know
other than this pedestrian love.
Really that’s all there is
for me not quite
half a lifetime later—so many
of the original players long gone.
All chairs face the window
onto the street when it rains. For a split
second, I forget why
I’m worried. It makes me anxious—
this forgetting. Then I remember: that death
thing. The when, where, and why
of it. No, that’s not it.
Can I walk the mile home without ruining
all that I’ve tried to iron
flat? Will I be able to pull that umbrella
from my pack in time? Will the laundry room
be empty tonight? What a relief.
She’s going to write another
poem about how she almost
moved
to Georgia. And she’ll use
move
at least two more times
before finding relief
for a blistered left
thumb. This burn—an accident.
An embarrassment.
An encounter
with a flat
iron nothing like the wedge
of a building where her former
self began.
Then the move
back
to Connecticut, then the big one
to Minneapolis—not Athens.
One music town
or another
moves
ahead. A northern girl
in the end—so far.
Whoever can write
about home on demand
has never been challenged
by the prospect of losing
its meaning. The place where I was born
holds no promise
of belonging. Have seen it
once since I left at six
months. Where I met my husband
means nothing because
there is no husband. If home is
where you hang
yourself, I can almost call this town
on the Mississippi the place. Almost. But
what about The City? The Atlantic Ocean?
It could be where you build
your own Take No Heroes Hotel
from some abandoned structure
with former lives peaking through.
AKA is not FKA is
not who she thinks
you are. How to feel saudade
about the name
of a place, not the place
itself. She wonders if
we are what we eat
on the way to choosing the one
that will stick.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 