They design Kentucky Derby hats
from precisely cut paper and memories half
illuminated by bourbon and slightly bruised
mint. Wide brimmed around the eye, mine
would go up in flames if
I got too close. Still a conversation before
the heat and muddle could count
towards tomorrow morning’s evening out.
I baptize myself in rosewater
to shield this body
from those thoughts. A reminder—
we all have a scent. Alcohol
breath that burns
the back of my neck
in a crowded theater was mine
a decade ago. It’s true—we’re the last to know.
A sharp ripeness that finally surfaces
in the thaw is not yours. You are solitude
well-spun. Shoes collect beneath
your feet to remind you
how slowly things change—till suddenly long
boots make no sense. Rarely do you exit high
lonesome. And to admit it—never.
Wind blows over
assumptions about a season. Not this year.
Come back next. Those tiny buds break
my heart. Teased
into believing warmth
would change me. Waiting
for the next me to bloom, I can’t
put this one in the back
of the closet yet. The crowded front
muffles a familiar hum—to be released.
Stories readying to be
created from a dollhouse’s freshly painted walls. I slept
in that beautiful, long-legged woman’s house
in Georgia in another life. A man who walks
with arms behind his back scares me
with silent questions. Why? When? Where?
Really just why. I don’t want
to wake from this dream to find no dollhouse
with secret cellar door
leading to where it all happened
in another underground. Lyric or narrative
dreamer—who can remember well enough to tell.
Rivers are larger than creeks are larger than
brooks are larger than runs. The man
you couldn’t get to that unnamed European airport
in time with is not the same man
you loved twenty years ago who would never sing
in front of an audience in a greenhouse. Or anywhere.
That was just a dream. Wouldn’t sing for anyone—not even you,
his precious cargo. He is not the same
man you wish would come out and play again. He would sing
for anyone—everyone. Would rather not
say a word when the music stops. He is not the same
man who wrote you a letter—one. Called you
on the phone—once. Meet me in the City. You could be
still waiting for him outside the bow of the Flat
Iron Building. But he’s not the same. Neither are you.
“Let’s put our heads together, start a new country up.
Underneath the river bed, we burned the river down.
This is where they walked, swam, hunted, danced, and sang.
Take a picture here, take a souvenir. Cuyahoga. Cuyahoga, gone.”
—from the song “Cuyahoga,” by Berry/Buck/Mills/Stipe (REM)
Back in ’88 the hottest heat
wave to hit parts known only to me
for those it was so cold
stories. Post-modern infill spills
onto Old Main Street. The big river never looked
so sad. I would not wade across it
for decades. Just not ready to embrace
that middle seam going all the way up. I didn’t know
the young, crooked one would boomerang
back into my life. I would grow
into the bridge between those two
that would never meet outside
my heart before it became a souvenir.
My criminal act concealed
for now we roam beneath bare
branches. Follow the river down
for a radical blossoming
before another cyclone wrecked
hillside. Sneezes for no reason—
there’s never a reason
to be so coy. Forgiveness begins
at the head of the falls.
Pathos or a compulsion
to turn everything outside
into me. I want to steal your pain—
relieve you—but
it’s a lie. I cannot feel
the flare-ups erupting
inside your muscles, joints, trust. Only
a greedy desire to conceal
my own fear inside walls
of an ancient cave
I’ll never enter. Not to see the primitive
finger flutings overhead—I become entangled
in this grotesque silence.
This addiction to nothing is not
the same as an addiction
to air. Living off
coffee and apples
without sleep or shade
is another one. Close
the mouth for good. Lockjaw love
won’t sustain me—nor will you.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 