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.
Not ready for the flash
mob to erase her
memory of him. Or
his name. She confesses
to her Connecticut days
and nights. No one
will recognize her
in this white tee, black
hoody, blue jeans, white
sneakers. She could—and
she will—take
another route home.
The first time I could have thought
I’d died and gone to heaven, I didn’t.
Only years later would I see
how one night of live music inside Toad’s
Place would be all I ever needed—
one almost lethal obsession kicking
in, another stubbornly tame one sparked
and filed away in a Midwestern vault
for safe keeping. Do not remove for more
than a decade (and a half). The first time
I did think I’d died and gone
there, I took a wrong turn
onto a riverboat and got trapped tracing
a wake aft. To cross it without spilling
into myself has become a new preoccupation
about to break the surface. Ready
as I’ll never be and all other stolen
turns of phrase twisted inside out.
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.
A bluff that doesn’t overlook
water, pot holes sink
into view overnight.
When I calculate distance
too literally, I begin
to see only a stranger
who grasps at straight lines,
begin to believe in
only their edges.
I’m not starting, not
stopping, merely counter-balancing
with these dollar coins
that perform revelry
in my pocket without a conductor.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 