Graffiti artists or civil
engineers leave
their mark on a sidewalk
outside an abandoned gas station. A half empty
bottle of Coors, one soaked pack
of Camels beside
your tombstone—vandals or care
takers. The golden
section, topology, a field
trip to the MIT Computation Center. Figures
may not lie, but street addresses can
disappear. What’s left is
open to interpretation.
Let’s agree to disagree
about this anger
I don’t feel. Only
those numbers in your handwriting
erased from a chalkboard
30 years ago know
how we were supposed to add up
or not. A psychology
of emotions cannot qualify
the spirit in the slate,
a song over the dugout,
stanzas hidden in the threshold
we passed through
so many times
without thinking to pause
long enough to honor the reveal.
Close enough is never enough
to align your hips
with my waist
no matter how long I ride
this train going south. I overshoot
the dream by a zone
or two. It’s up to me
to make adjustments. In your permanent
state—you won’t budge. But
weather is everywhere—weather is
god. I am everywhere wondering where
you’ve gone to weather god.
The poetry’s in
the unconsummation
and this latitude
we almost finally share.
If I die tonight, will we
become lovers by tomorrow
evening? Civil twilight to entwine
two severed spirits. Counting
finally done. To drink or not, new
wine or old—it won’t matter. That age gap
sewn up once and for all. If
I make it till morning, I will continue
to keep a record
of what might have been.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 