A picture falls
off the wall
in my dream. Nothing
breaks. No explanation
necessary in my dream. The room
changes shape. Misaligned
pelvis or sacrum
or love
of lighthouses
could cause this
pain felt when awake. In my
dream, numb and suspended
and just
out of reach.
The knitter in a café
whispers to herself—is it
do drop
or don’t
drop
a stitch? An allergy
to wool is not the same
as a fear
of sheep
staples. Those long blunt
needles could be
walking sticks
for gods or
batons for
conducting accidental
pauses in an unclaimed song.
Without permission,
her pilot light
blue eyes lock
onto a boldly painted
arrow on a sign.
It points left
to a back room
she knows well but
not from this angle. It’s not
a secret to be
uncurled. Another sign
in another place
on another street points
left too. Blocking
the only revolving
door in sight, it says in chalk:
“Use Revolving Door.”
This is how messages
come undone without being
erased. It takes 12 years
to put Adam back together
from shattered marble
fragments. Blue
weakens to yellow.
An 85-year-old
woman gets raped
in her apartment. The weakest
flame is a murmur
that signals some
of us home.
Fiddlers translate
the sound of water
rushing over creek
bed stones into string
music. Editors meddle
sometimes for the better,
sometimes worse. I am
no musician no
architect no dancer no
doctor no comic javelin
thrower no no
gardener code
specialist no secret
agent no no just
a meddler sometimes
the one
meddled with. Mettle left
over another hymn to write.
Too early for music (live
or streamed or recorded or
dead). Neon lit
guitars above the roadhouse bar.
Coffee poured not Mexican
martinis. They’re everywhere here—
guitars. I still remember
the lesson you gave me. I got G
but not C. But nobody cared. We laughed
our heads off
as the bus rolled down
a Connecticut turnpike. Still too early
this morning in Austin
to replay it aloud.
Untamed or unnamed, the tilt is in
her head—and a lock shuts
down forever to stop
the spread of invasive
species up
river. Forever is
a long time to fight the ambitions
of fish. She’ll find the way
to unburden her own.
I’ve folded his poem into an imperfect
square aka
a rectangle to read later not sure when
maybe on the plane
before it takes off maybe tonight in the hotel
before I turn off the light maybe never but
I know I won’t be able to resist
reading another poem
entitled Saudade and hope to write a memorable one
of those myself some day
for now I settle for titles like strays chrome
before browsing mutate mule etiquette
fit for drinking this is becoming
a nonlinear prose poem except
I am trying to pay attention
to line breaks
and may succeed
impeach you would be another example
and of course you can never write too many
poems called daffodil or
and especially the take no heroes hotel my personal favorite
wish it could be the title
of a book of poems not just one floating
on the polished surface
of a Midwestern lake
who decided it was cool to hang
framed family photos on the stair case wall
they call that wetting the whistle with water
this time I wouldn’t gum up his works I wouldn’t
the date October 12
stares back at me again
time to declare no more bones
on display take away this Columbus Day
we are all thieves
Not exactly a rip
current but enough of a drag
to rearrange her.
Where are we?
Where’s our stuff?
See my car beyond
the collapsing seawall?
Identifying cars has never been her
strength. A weakened
swollen left foot
finds relief
in the cool salt
water. Nothing hurts
in this moment. Gang
shootings happen weekly
back home. Heads down, eyes
locked in, a knot
in the throat that can’t be loosened
by the contents
of any of those 10,000 +
lakes. By blood soaking into a little sister’s
sleeve. And swimming here
in a dress, she wishes
she could be more lost.
A bent sweeper
handle distills moments
to pause for moon
spotting. Or, becomes his favorite
chin-up bar when she moves
closer, positions her mouth
mere inches from his, insists
on cleaning
beneath his bare
soles. The pun rolls under
the couch where neither
can reach it. Just too
foggy tonight.
Would he rather be
the storyteller or
a story told
with nails? A hammer or
a sickle threshing prairie
grass on a roof
overlooking a bridge
where lost
stories go to–
to do what? To leap
over faith toward a longer
narrative, or to jump
into an abrupt ending, or
to cross with others
to the other side
of a river
that never gets named. Then what?
It’s too late
to become a lyric
gesture, sound turned
down low.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 