And the old floating
bridge moans
as the cattails
whistle and she nods
to the fish
in the pond below. And
urban nature’s
reach rescues
her once again
from herself.
Poetry
July 27: 11 Months
Startled by the number 27
on my apartment door,
the nearest cross
street to an avenue
I used to live on. Where
did it factor
in your life
before it became
the day you died?
No reflexes can wake you
now, no tallies
too low, temperatures
too high. You used
to say time
was make believe,
manufactured to manage obsessions—
yours, mine, the rest
of the world’s. When light
rain placates a summer afternoon,
I wonder who
did the making and what
materials were used. You would
have known. Which mattered
most—the distance
you traveled or the moments
passed observed? You kept track
of both despite everything
because you knew
no other way to live.
Day 333
Temp drops
a natural spritz
darkens the sidewalk. Hail
pounds down
crops. Buzz
used to be
the sound of bees—but
where are they, where
are we now?
Routes and Revivals
Nobody would mistake
a runner’s
log for poetry. No true
run could be
anything less. Or honest
obsession begin
any way other than head
first into the deep
end of risk
and nostalgia. I am
nobody waiting
to meet you
again. Then again
who am I
to be so mistaken
by fresh water
over warped notes?
Fan Fact
Window, tower, box,
circular, three-speed, high
velocity, ceiling, exhaust. Heat
waves come and
stay. Birds
bathe in dirt, the cat a puddle
of flattened fur
behind the claw
foot tub. All the characters
have been stolen—tickets
on sale next
Wednesday at noon.
Was the Anniversary of Johnny Thunders’ Birth
Yesterday. An unmarked package
delivered on an unmarked
morning. But she knows. Has been expecting
you to return
for a new verse, extended play. Gone
from gonna to did
and looping
back again. No more bye-bye. What’s it
like? Who really wants to know?
Another French Cold Press (or Bastille Day)
When she can’t remember what
she wrote
down yesterday, or
last night. When the lyrics
to an old favorite
taste funny
in her mouth. When
she turns left
instead of right to encounter
a street she hasn’t explored
in decades. Gets on a train
and gets off
in a town
she’s never heard of. And
the week feels eight
days long. And the quiet
in her head
alarms her. Then she turns
up the volume
to expose
a new silence
and words almost lost.
Cold Press or Bust
The truth
about the bumbershoot. Without
an accent. Rain
won’t fall yet. Another Cessna
Citation will land before
it does. Just one more thumbprint
and the walls
will be done.
They Stare at the Spider on the Ceiling
Twenty years ago
social and media did not slow
dance together. We lived
two blocks apart and wrote
letters to each other—sometimes typed,
sometimes handwritten
on the back
of band flyers. Rode bicycles separately
to meet at civil twilight
beside a bench
on the west side of the lake. Carved
our initials into its weather-softened wood
back. Rain could not erase
the way we believed
we could entwine ourselves
into a protective web
to keep echoes of residual melancholy
at bay. That was the summer I became
precious cargo. I hear you are
a happy man now—and I still refuse
to dust corners or become graffiti.
Some Sunken Urban Parks
don’t deserve to be
preserved. Sometimes
a smile is too
precious, a phrase too
slippery, a mirror
too polished, room
too clean, dog
too calm, child too
still, a bird
too blue. I might be
the street that got too
wide. But no tree
could ever be
too tall.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 