She almost settles
for a blank page. At the last
minute, she drops
ink—no coloring
inside or outside
the lines. There are none.
Just a geometry
of faith in some kind
of muse. Be it green-tinted
goslings growing by
the second in the grasses
along Lake of the Isles. Or,
some other miracle
still capable of bursting
on the scene upon our poor
wearied planet.
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.
Will not
talk about it–
no circumpolar whirl
wind shear doldrums super storm fog–
just air.
This one isn’t talking
into his cell—
he’s just talking
to himself. The first day
of spring and a Caution—
Falling Ice sign
still stands outside
the crime lab. Notable
wind chill and not a blade
of grass to be seen
anywhere outdoors. Inside
the skyway linked
towers, little plots
sprout everywhere.
That ballerina on the back
of a bus, inventions
to relieve
sinus pressure before
all the trees
bloom. For the one who walks
alongside—wild
flowers mostly. And rants the color
of wisteria
early on.
Wind blows over
assumptions about a season. Not this year.
Come back next. Those tiny buds break
my heart. Teased
into believing warmth
would change me. Waiting
for the next me to bloom, I can’t
put this one in the back
of the closet yet. The crowded front
muffles a familiar hum—to be released.
My criminal act concealed
for now we roam beneath bare
branches. Follow the river down
for a radical blossoming
before another cyclone wrecked
hillside. Sneezes for no reason—
there’s never a reason
to be so coy. Forgiveness begins
at the head of the falls.
Four children four
seasons—does it begin
with spring or winter?
It all depends—
whether we are dormant
before we live, whether
we can begin again, whether
autumn counts at all.
Your cold retreat just days
before becoming
officially on
is a cruel dance
on last night’s sighs
into a buoyant civil
dusk. You turn
me on only to turn
your back to my naked
fantasies of an us—two
turtles on a broken branch
over the rising river.
It crests in the valley
at the convergence
of the small into
the mighty. Floods
a grain terminal
in new repurpose, drowns
an island for now, distracts
me from your absence.
This pulled-up leather
collar collides
with that last image
I’ve been working
into you.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 