A regatta underway in ditch water,
the wind changes direction
just in time. To survive the melt
without damage is no small act. Welcome
to the drip age. From it, drought isn’t a life
saver. Water—too much— not enough—can kill. When
this planet gets the DTs,
it’s all over but the quakes.
No one else called you Lester. No one knows
I broke your typewriter—
save you. Who will
call me
Esther now? I see the jumbled
mass of timber holding up the Grain
Belt billboard sign. It doesn’t change
even when the river below breaks
open its mid-sigh
pause after months
of near death
threats. This city moves
to a different cadence
in a dye color you and I
could never find
for that windbreaker
that got left behind. On a wooden stoop
behind a cobbler’s shop.
Everybody’s got to work.
The banging has stopped
for you. For me, I’m left holding
jokes no one else gets—inside out.
I see her eyes
in the actor’s face. If
looks could give birth
to laughter, labor
would begin in hidden
murmurs there. The joy
is in riding
the Staten Island Ferry
come winter or late
fall. No one falls
in tonight. No swim will refresh
our thoughts. Lonely and lovely
dance on the deck
under a civil twilight sky.
Three days later. Can’t sing anymore.
An uncle’s ashes scattered
from the Statue of Liberty. Nightmares
in daylight, cross out drunk—
write down sick. Expected rescue
does not come. Nothing
is wasted in this world—is a lie. A lump
of cold damp earth
in her hand. To the edge, she closes
her eyes, opens her hand. Thin
tinkle of a mandolin makes
a sad sound. Not from the common
cup—not Johnny.
Note: Contains phrases found or inspired by Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
And how do you know this text
message is just for you? Viral
newsletter, false sense
of value, hope in a reconnection
smashed against LED flashes
of recognition—you are not
the only one. Nothing personal.
Nothing to take at all.
Beware ice beneath
the door mat. She
may knock you
down with newly retrieved
self-confidence. When it’s this cold,
the surreal slips inside
cracks in doors, walls,
boots, skin. Water is
life or death—depends
on perspective. More
life, she thinks, when she keeps
her balance across thresholds.
If this is intimate—this
niche tucked inside an atrium—if
this sliced open
building represents the way
we live now, then I wonder
what that old pair of black dress
pants left in the snow
outside an even older church
means. Tried and hung
sneakers have dangled from obsolete
telephone lines above shadowed
movements—guilty and otherwise.
Earthquake swarms that go
bump in the night as I stumble
through darkness in a jumpsuit
that predicts how I will
feel in 30 years. Can no more tell
how any of us will rate
on the pain scale—emotional, physical,
or spiritual—than you can
know when we’ll go down
stairs without a care
in the world—this or that or any
other one that may or may not
be spinning out there. But
these guesses are infinite—and free.
in echoes. And they walk down a corridor lined with portraits. Hung
inwardly on the walls. Stale messages
from adolescent bullies pull
at the corners of my mouth, clouds dump rain from the blue sky
of my eyes. I hear vice whispered in this escape to a forgotten stone
impasse with portico leanings. The men detach
themselves from those walls to march
through their namesake colonnade. Frames begin to rattle with the motion
of female portraits turning toward me. Face after face to remind me I can touch mine. It is still here
along with life-affirming sadness to strengthen my limbs and salted resolve.
They walk down a corridor lined
with portraits hung inwardly
on the walls. Stale messages
from adolescent bullies pull
at the corners of my mouth,
clouds dump rain from the blue sky
of my eyes. I hear vice whispered
as I escape to this portico—a forgotten
impasse. When the men detach
themselves from those walls to pass
through their namesake colonnade,
frames begin to rattle
as portraits of women turn toward me. Face
after face to remind me I can touch
mine. It is still here
along with life-affirming sadness
to strengthen my limbs.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 