When her grandfather paid her
a nickel for each half
hour she could sit still
and mute
neither could know how
her father’s words would evaporate
into close Jersey shore air
for free, how the other capital A
disease untreated might do the same
to a friend she can’t bear to be near—
and stillness becomes
permanent. Even if
she kept those nickels
all these years, she couldn’t purchase
a reprieve
from either for anyone.
The Mississippi River is a poem.
I slip through city pores
to its west then south then west
bank. It will not be shaped
by coordinates. Will not lay down easy
for measurement.
How to become plum with a poem is
a gritty quest with a solution that won’t be fixed.
Don’t draw a line through
this day yet—late
afternoon and still sleeves
are optional, blinding light
from the sun’s reflection
on a fender, her footsteps
reflect nothing but promise
of a moon sighting tonight.
A young man in a loud
print shirt, baggy shorts, flip
flops, makes
a balance beam
from a track rail. Records
a freight train’s flight
through the station
to replay and give false hope to future
passengers dodging bats
passing under the eaves. Lights
from boats on moonlight
excursions and the Harbor
Bar across the channel
on the island with no name
transform the river
into a stage. Others wait
to travel west:
White Fish, Montana,
Portland, Oregon,
Chico, California,
eventually. For me, the waiting
will be longer than the journey home.
“Soaked in the blood and black of thousands of dead bugs. We smelled our clothes deeply.”
—Jack Kerouac, On the Road
What color
is your blood, she asks
her grandmother instinctively.
The answer comes on strong
as a tall shot
of Polish vodka: black. Absence
or all wavelengths of light,
it’s so hard to tell
in this reflection against skin.
Suddenly evening crowds
the street—a quickened
descent—September
acceleration
into darkness cooling
and smiling upward—there
moon, there moon.
Vital signs appear in all directions—here
the universal symbol
for no longer choking. The color blue
has turned green
as mature redwood leaves
modest in their fog shroud.
She remembers how
to read them only when she steals
a moment from leaf litter beds
to refocus her mind
on what her eyes have been fixing
all along—this figure eight.
I am that body. Sedated
to prevent convulsion
into permanent stillness. I am
all bodies in motion
and at unrest. I am
this living
moment
where all fury and blame
are rubbed out. Fragile shell—
I am one too.
Perfect storm
of sadness perfect sky
perfect color apple perfect collapse
perfect moon
perfect agony perfect love perfect slow
suicide perfect rescue
perfect disease
perfect song perfect hell perfect
emotion—who’s to say when
it’s been reached.
This exquisite solitude
is my ambrosia, soma, cool
breeze coaxing a hammock
on a crest overlooking
a breaking ocean.
Acquired over years
of painful resistance,
even more gruesome
dependence
on a man—any man—this pleasure
dome is equipped with a retractable roof,
an observatory
for observing the hems
of gods. Some of them slightly torn.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 