Poetry: Amanda Nadelberg

U.S.A. Long Stairs

That boats might set
toward other pooled
nests in which to precise
the new, the small company
proceeds historic visits;
midair apartments saying
small to their own demise,
the dining table yields slight
conversations, concerned for
no matter of duration since the
way out there is straight as you
might imagine, if you imagine
when you lie down, that your
body lays down the country.
America you’re complicated,
mistaking the way to a posted
porch by invitations to sit down
amidst messianic ages of less
dancing for anyone sincere, with
expectations that the furniture
won’t let alone long enough to sit
down and consider the minions—
conditions really—until they’re
sent back to the sea and bodies
are turned into blank hearts
bobbing under a sign, climbing
into hot tubs, letting liars keep
to themselves as we ask them to.
Regardless of subsequent trips
to the moon, the stars keep fire
because dalliance, one-two-three,
and the clever parade is breaking,
losing cities to seismograph in
any place to be still; institutions
figuring crates by way of stories,
vaulted rules, canned forays
sounding love falling down,
it will be about women and men.



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Amanda Nadelberg is the author of Bright Brave Phenomena (forthcoming from Coffee House Press), Isa the Truck Named Isadore (Slope Editions, 2006) and a chapbook, Building Castles in Spain, Getting Married (The Song Cave, 2009).