She isn’t going to tell
you or your brother
what she’s doing
with your other brother.
She doesn’t want
to know what you think
of her sister, or
what you plan to do
with her cousin.
She’s writing a book
without faces, without
links to anything
save
the fence she hopes
to break through.
An incurable addiction
to the image
that comes on strong,
without warning—blue
bottles emptied of their rose
water gather light
upon a sill. A vine
still holding its dried leaves
tight clings to the window
in the dead
of winter not so dead. Stacks
of CDs cover the clear plastic
lid over a turntable. Everything
collects dust when ignored—especially
the soul.
She dreams of a concrete
image, and it arises naked
to settle upon her
shoulders—an invisible vibration
ready to be captured
inside a bell.
I am discarded ice
sculpture. Placed
alongside a loading
dock outside the rail
corridor, I will not melt
this far north. I’m a swan,
pedestal, easel-shaped. I’m
what’s left after a party
where I might have been
the center
of attention, or highly visible
aside. Now I am what you see
when you escape out the back—or
just dream of it
while taking another drag.
A day later, what was buried
truth in subconscious ruts
has dissolved into a residue
debate: Did she? She didn’t—
did she? Each time she has one,
she’s never in the actual
act. It’s done. She’s left
with only mind-altering
denial—a hollow clanking
in her purse.
Long or short, nothing
must be out of place. Clipped
corners in love
with a raked center. The scent
of six o’clock bells
in the cold dark must trail
off just so. Just so
this mouth doesn’t lose
its absolute shape.
She cannot know the words
she may shout
in her sleep—a sleep
she journeys to alone,
whether or not
she is alone in a room.
Her cat won’t tell. She can
make it up: “Please don’t stop
singing.” Or: “I’m falling
free, please don’t
catch me.” Or: “No, no, no.”
Or: “Yes, yes, yes.” Or,
she can let it be
a mystery, the cat
slipping into another room,
her arms resting overhead.
A congestion takes
time to clear
away stale ideas. Would it
really be the end
of the world to be
a new
soul. With slow
moving ovals
to louse
up patterns without.
I was born
funny
looking, looking
to make my way
with a simple trick—
a mouth shaped
downward to laugh,
upward to sob, and nothing
in between. Who knows
if that part
really matters.
When the surface below
her feet can no longer be
trusted and she can no longer hold
in that scream, sweat and fever break
before unsuspecting eyes. What happens
to old souls at middle
age? She lost hers
in the bottom of a bottle
of Rioja, a fermenting worm hoarding
all visionary movement in its ringed
pulse, only recovered
it in the past decade. Is it preserved
or a witness
to exquisite decay? Relax,
roll with it, let your timbre
do its catch and release. But, no,
she can’t. She’s not ready to expose that worm
to its reflection in the glass
floor. She still believes
a ceiling would be a better prop.
She can drop the music
on ice—it won’t
break apart
the way she hopes her worry
stone strokes might. Cracks
visible on a surface
take time to register inside
her. Continuity
isn’t hers to give away.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 