Not ready—not ready
for what? Sexy architecture
exposed to the naked
and untrained. To mourn
another death I missed
during my two-year
blackout. To check into a library
hotel. Talk to the dead
for ten days straight
about a dress I might wear. Remember
my dreams again. Or, it is this:
I have put everything down—the bottle,
smokes, the pen I’ve used
to write letters of desperation. It is that
I’m just not ready to go.
Remember when
a nook was a nook, friend
and text were nouns. We were verbs
entwined without
unnecessary articles. I imagine you
the way I did before
we met—and the whole poem collapsed
under the weight of our naked
words. Truth is
what was stranger than
has been replaced with less than
a preoccupation
with middle-aged thighs. And I
recognize this contradicts everything
you presume. Probably. Vain
is still nothing
but a modifier. The end.
Another chance for naked
thought escapes into a threatening
sky before it tips
into night. Nothing comes
of the gusts. What blows
over wasn’t as transparent
as she wished. Dangling
power lines frighten her
now as they did when
she ran all the way to the point
for a slow spin.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 