Common Roots not the CC
these days. Urban beavers, the storms
of early summer leave barricades
to lake connecting channel paths
I want to follow. I bless
reversible steps—duck and dart
back through without
a scratch. Not going to play pool
in a darkened bar on a sunny afternoon
the way we used to waste
time. I’m still learning the definition
of precious. You’re in it—
and gone forever.
Birthdays are present
tense even when the honoree is past
tense. In a year’s time,
I will surpass him in living
years. It’s a lie
that we can’t catch up
to, surpass, one another. I make
no predictions. Stand still could be
a quality of light
or shade of blue. I can see
only glare—no faces reflected
in the atrium wall, could be
a window if
you’re into that kind of thing.
No one else called you Lester. No one knows
I broke your typewriter—
save you. Who will
call me
Esther now? I see the jumbled
mass of timber holding up the Grain
Belt billboard sign. It doesn’t change
even when the river below breaks
open its mid-sigh
pause after months
of near death
threats. This city moves
to a different cadence
in a dye color you and I
could never find
for that windbreaker
that got left behind. On a wooden stoop
behind a cobbler’s shop.
Everybody’s got to work.
The banging has stopped
for you. For me, I’m left holding
jokes no one else gets—inside out.
Three days later. Can’t sing anymore.
An uncle’s ashes scattered
from the Statue of Liberty. Nightmares
in daylight, cross out drunk—
write down sick. Expected rescue
does not come. Nothing
is wasted in this world—is a lie. A lump
of cold damp earth
in her hand. To the edge, she closes
her eyes, opens her hand. Thin
tinkle of a mandolin makes
a sad sound. Not from the common
cup—not Johnny.
Note: Contains phrases found or inspired by Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
Didn’t see it
coming—this Zen
sadness over the leaving
you. Fear, anxiety, yes,
even anger over a smokeless
sky. Didn’t know
that last flicker would remind me
so much of him
On the Third Avenue Bridge
over the only spot
where river flow can still be
seen, I let go
of the last trace
of your voice—recording
of how I don’t want
to remember you
erased. What’s left
are those moments
I could see you
still moving. Those falls
rush on a relentless
industrial music.
For Steve
Because there would be
no next time
around, she chooses to listen
to Nick Drake, Sandy Denny, Joy
Division the way he would have wished
if he still could.
For Steve and Colin
We three who sit in a tattered, sprung black
booth on the non-music side
ask
ourselves this. The confusion—
liver or lives, ecstasy
from a handful of pills or arms
dropping
from an invisible burden. It would kill
off two, would leave
the third alone
to hold the hollows
of an answer together
with her own hug
she wraps around herself.
For Steve
A spring rain
essence hangs in the air
on a Saturday morning
in October, triggers memories
of any season
up for grabs. We hunt for rats
in the NYC subway,
on its streets, behind
its garbage bins
in alleys. Summer in the City
always makes a statement
to the nose. Bad
puns and monotony
breaking drinks to keep us
warm on a Minnesota winter
night. I came unprepared. You
had no idea what you were
getting yourself into—out of.
On the west bank
of the Saint Croix,
we read through
all I had written
come spring. It came
so violently, I almost faded
dead away
by my own hand. Was it yours
that crossed out
the almost
18 years later—the slow
desperation of a soul dying
to be free.
No mapping
exercise, no
diapason, geometric
shape speaking to me
while I sleep
will bring him back. No
longer in medias res, he
took the wrong detour
and never recovered
his footing.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 