It’s happening again—distortion
in the sky. Not another season
in sight. The man in a neon vest drops
his shovel. A bus rolls up—
wheels on a new white blanket.
Won’t last. Disintegration
at ground level. I watch from my skyway
perch—it is warm up
inside. Which one in stupid hat and gloves
is you? I gave up the search
decades ago. Now I extinguish the light.
Music sounds better without
the smoke. I’m the listener,
not the singer. But forgive me
if I mouth his words, even sing along,
as I walk across another skyway bridge
on my way to heightened
exhales. Hums crossing dangerously close
to humiliation—still better than
arrogantly setting
tobacco on fire again.
A relief to see no parade
tonight, she still wants
to ask that man who eats
an apple as he exits
a parking ramp
if it’s bad
luck to walk in front
of a fire station’s garage
doors each morning,
then night. If the red light
means anything. If
he has a former lover
who has died too.
I will map my avoidance a story
above fear. Frozen
or thawed, it’s got fangs. Transparent
or glazed, it coats the edges
of my motion toward makeshift tunnel
openings. Burrow or bite, the shiny
isn’t always so sweet.
I won’t be the one
who left her purple
gloves on the counter, who cut off
the blind man in limbo
between buildings. Will be
the one looking
for a way around
Holidazzle Parade crowds. I will
return to street level
next time I see
my way home before dark.
Moan or whistle, skyway
window panes are walls
of response to the lowest
air pressure to hit the state
in recorded history. Loss
of power isn’t the same
as how we become powerless
to stop weather patterns
of obsession from registering
overhead—constricting within.
Flip-flopping between Kerouac,
Miller, Jeffers, Ferlinghetti, and me, she
seeks an answer
to her female question:
Why!
It’s a zigzag route—a skyway
network with real weather
leaking in. She takes it
again and again: bank
to bank, civil
dawn to civil
dusk, Atlantic
to Pacific, instrumental
to spoken
word, digital
to analog, fold-out
to GPS, root
cellar to high
rise green
roof, concave
to convex, at rest
to in motion, addiction
to rejection, black
butterfly to ancient
barnacle, female
to male—what was she thinking
asking them to ask me? She should have
left it at the river. Either side
of the falls would do.
If she were shooting
photos day
by day, she would look
for you in two-way skyway
motion, would need to
actually see you, then find
a way to take your image
without being exposed.
Impossible. You’re nowhere
near here. Not yet. Not ever
going to take cover
on this second floor winter
salvation. No, she has it
too easy—
this corner table, this pen,
that imagination, the taking
a network of secret lines.
I want to climb into your chute and go
where you’ll take me. Part of the longest continuous network
anywhere, you’ve lost
something. A building? Parking ramp? Human
contact? Asymmetry
is an addiction. Skyway to nowhere,
feed me.
A florist indulges
in soliloquy. I pass
by without knowing
the hours. It takes a skyway
to access
desperation this whorled.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 