don’t deserve to be
preserved. Sometimes
a smile is too
precious, a phrase too
slippery, a mirror
too polished, room
too clean, dog
too calm, child too
still, a bird
too blue. I might be
the street that got too
wide. But no tree
could ever be
too tall.
Still bare from a long winter, my favorite
tree has grown
crazier than I remember. One wildly long branch
reaches across the street
to shake hands with its fellow elder
on the block. Just one
south of the CC Club. I never enter
that darkness anymore. Someone leaves
a black teapot on top
of a recycle bin—yes or no? Do it.
Knock it in. Everything
deserves a second chance.
And under glass: Clifford,
the Blind Fairy, Green
Eggs and Ham, Corduroy,
Celia and the Sweet,
Sweet Water, Elsie
Times Eight, and so on
across the plane
of a table top. Hard
cover nonfiction
for legs. I see no reference
books recycled into rocking
chair runners. No poetry
collection lamp stands. But
with eyes closed
anything can be.
In a transformer
world, carpet
tiles are never new
even when they are—
melted thumb
tacks or dog
collars in a former
life. If I could memorize
a color, I wouldn’t need
a sample room
tucked inside
a satchel. If I could match
that patent
leather red with a ceiling
that used to be
a row
of chairs, I wouldn’t want
to reminisce
about those lacquer days.
In closing, some stand back
in their standard poses,
others have taken
the fall into a pile
of limbs and tiny torsos. All
white-washed and naked
and smoothed over and buckled
under the expanse
of gray carpet
in an empty showroom
where the sales fell
short. Where they go
next is a recycler’s dream
I hope to have tonight.
These legs ache
from the act of hauling
the memory
of his voice and brilliant
wisecracks out my door, down
the back stairs, to the alley
dumpster. Done. I lean
these old wooden idols against the iron
base on wheels. I believe
in the potential to recycle
everything—the divers will come
out tonight. I wear this stiffness
as a badge of endurance. You
threw out mine almost as soon
as you heard it
in an age before reuse.
A clogged bathroom sink
drain propels her
into a Monday morning
thunderstorm. Most organs can’t be
recycled. Is command
really an alternative
to control? A name attached
to a body is still
just a name. Who she is
when the afternoon sun evaporates
pavement puddles
is another truth.
“Then nothing will remain of the iron age
And all these people but a thigh-bone or so, a poem
Stuck in the world’s thought, splinters of glass
In the rubbish dumps, a concrete dam far off in the mountain . . .”
—Robinson Jeffers, from “Summer Holiday”
I can find the trash
chute without falling
under its spell. Won’t be abducted
by shattered glass thoughts
desperate to become sand
again. I will recycle myself. Will
find another man
to feed me—am seeking
fresh vegetables, grilled fish, and laughter
sweet as peaches
we’ll dare to eat.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 