Radiant orchid
throughout each season—even now
when rain can’t quite
wash away the most hardened dirty
snow. Somewhere the temperature
drops just enough at night
before a warming settles in. Somewhere
someone sings,
“California Dreamin’”
to coax things along. Someone
somewhere is still searching
for a word that rhymes
with orange.
Freezing
fog come morning.
Then unbelievable
sunshine shakes the river and falls
awake.
It could be a horse’s white
mane that hangs
over an outdoor
sconce. Week after
week, it doesn’t melt. Is it
permanent? She hears
a recording of her own
voice and wonders who
might want to curl up
inside it till it thaws.
Will she find
shelter for her words,
bed for her enjambment, a bath
for her stanzas. Not
a question–merely
a series of projections
to use
as stepping stones
to reach beyond
memories of rain
pounding on
a roof
to the rhythm
of failed love.
She will learn
how to locate her
own duende,
so she won’t
have to borrow
yours anymore. And now
she gets
home before dark.
Corsages not corsets. Shawls
over the Venus
de Milo. Motel
not hotel. Architect over
poet. Defect without
sheepdogs or
a diaspora.
A clock,
a kite, or a barn. One
last busy signal
before the station
wagon rolls over another
gravel road off
the map. No one shouts
“caryatid”—even
when hitchhikers with 2x4s
return, mumbling,
“It’s just a game.”
I weep
each time I hear
my favorite Beatle
who has been gone too long—we don’t
forget.
In bars, on street corners, along
green hill campuses, in dark
corners beneath
office towers, on trains, beside
zoos, buried deep
below backyards, above a murder
of crows, in the palm
of her hand.
What if
you never had a broken
heart—no, wait,
I mean bone. What if?
And no stitches
after the wisdom
teeth were pulled. But
back to the heart. Take
care not to break
your soul—those of you
who know
where to find yours.
Fifty years. Before
my time—barely. I was born
into a country
in mourning. Would never
know an innocence
once claimed. Never
know a world without
that eternal flame. Would never
hear that voice, that particular brand
of Boston accent live.
Sixteen grief-stained days
shy of being able to say:
“I was there.”
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 