Counts backwards
till she can’t breathe. She pretends
a message will appear
at zero
on a screen addressed to her
from you. A different kind
of marring,
you’ll be asking for it.
Hard on the lips,
her pressure increases
as your resistance
goes down. Exaltation.
He was minus three
when those songs from heaven
were playing on
AM radio. I was zero.
When he was zero, I was
in Northern Illinois
learning how
to say three instead
of free.
I would never be
so much so again. No multiples
will return me
to that coincidence—one
he’ll never know.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 