A young Nico in Berlin, photographed by Herbert Tobias.

Nico Restored

I.
Because Nico could not foresee the danger ahead.
She was not careful, she was a child.
Above her Hell’s Sun
moved blackly—How far away? Shall I touch it?–
Like some shiny wet ink spot, or a stuck wet leaf.

II.
Before her journey back Nico slept and slept and
dreams: back then it was all right.
Back then it was a wall of black crickets and her baby
sitter’s ventriloquil voice.
As she slept It watched over her, and
loved her in Its brief, iron-lung heart.
It did not want to let her go, but knew, but knew.
It did not think of itself as lost, it did not think of itself at all.
It just was. It just wanted.

III.
Nico did not think of herself as lost
she did not think of herself at all.
She just was. She just wanted.
Christa wanted.
It has changed, she thinks.
Nico’s Nico. Come for Nico. She just
wanted the image of her lost face.
Herself. For a moment Nico could not imagine Nico, nor recall
the green of green, the hum of wires,
the flash of fires, the sound of sound
had come apart

IV.
It has changed.
She was nowhere.
Her heart. Inside her.
Christa wanted gravity. The thing that was not flat
watched her from behind a red cliff.
When she laid her white hand across her red heart Its mouth opened.
Her ears could not catch her own dripping sound.
She said her name to hear it, the sound
When It moved Its knotted head It pushed Itself out of gravity.

V.
Nico says: When I stand on the roof of the opera it’s amazing I don’t fly off.
Nico sits atop a red cliff, atop an expanse of red sand.
As red as far as the eye can see.
She is red, too, from the sand, mixing with her sweat.
She takes off her sweater, and
tosses it aside.
She takes off her shoes, and lies back.
She touches her body. It has changed. Her body is red.
Afterwards she leans forward to shake her hair
until grains of sand fall out like thunder.

VI.
Nico marvels that although she has not eaten she is not hungry.
It has fed her food while she slept, careful to remove each and every
crumb from her face with tweezers. It has spent an eternity
using its tweezers to move
mountains, grain by grain.
It does not want Nico to escape, but It does not know how to stop her.
The thing it does best is observe. It does not know how to stop things.
Back then it was all right.

VII.
Back then, Nico, thinks, it was all right.
It finally comes for Nico while she sleeps, curled in the sand.
It cleans her face, grain by grain, not even touching her skin.
It spread its wings over her to measure her size.
It considers its sack full of potions.
It worries she is dead and leans close in to her face.
It loves her so gently.
Take me back to back then.

VIII.
The marble index of a mind forever.
Christa wanted.
To free her mind, because it was caught.
I wouldn’t want a different variety, thinks Nico.

Nico thinks in shapes
more and more.
Round and Square.
Truth or Dare

are not shapes.

Not sound.
Not gravity.
The Absolute Zero.

Nico’s mind is a shape that comes
to free her mind, because it was caught
with Its claws
and retraces her footprints
she just wanted to free her mind, because it was caught
with Its claws
retraces her footprints
squares and triangles, circles and cones.

Her own shape, the pattern of sunlight
just wanted to free her mind, because it was caught
with Its red mountain claws and triangular imagination,
circles and cones.

Fright and dread, fear and bones, Wehrmacht dreams.
Her own
but a King.

Come for Nico.
But a King.
Come for Nico.

Her very own body in the night,
beneath the Ibiza sheets, the shape her hands make.
The real Nico, more real than real, her old self

a Sleeping Beauty for some fierce Prince
but It is not a Prince.
Shape, the pattern of moonlight upon
more and more, the hospital floor.

Her very own body in the night
beneath the light, the shape the world makes.

The real Nico, more Nico than Nico, her old self
a Sleeping Beauty for some fierce Prince.

But It is not a Prince.
Come for Nico, no fangy King
beneath the sheets
the shape her hands make.

The real Nico, more real than real, her old self
a Sleeping Beauty for some fierce Prince.

She just wanted to free her mind to be
the hunting thing with claws of shade.
Where It went, Nico wonders, and retraces her footprints.
Sleeping and murder.
Squares and triangles.

Fright and dread, fear and bones.
Her own melodic shape, the pattern of moonlight upon
the institutional floor. Her very own body in the night
beneath the white cold sheets, the red triangulated claws
of Greek thought.

The real Nico, more real than real, her old self
but this thing–this It–is not a Prince.
Rather a King.
Come for Nico.

Sleeping Beauty for some fierce Prince.
But this thing—this It—is not a Prince
rather a Devil.
come for Nico.

She just wanted to free her mind, because it was
a trick and retraces her footprints
squares and triangles, circles and cones.
She just was. She just wanted.
Christa wanted.

Her own shape, the pattern of moonlight upon
the hospital floor. Her very own Nico in the night,
beneath the sheets
she just wanted to free her mind, because It was caught
with Its Trick
and retraces her footprints, Squares and Triangles
circles and cones
fright and dread fear and bones.
Her own shape
Red-sanded body and mountain side
her cold linoleum floor.
Her very own body in the night
come for Nico.

IX
Back then it was all right.
Take me back.

Come for Nico.

Nicholas Rombes is author of the novels The Absolution of Roberto Acestes Laing (Two Dollar Radio), The Rachel Condition (CLASH Books), and Lisa 2, v 2.0 (Calamari Archives). He co-edits TIMECODES (Bloomsbury), a film book series dedicated to slow criticism and is author of 10/40/70 (Zer0 Books). He’s an English prof. in Detroit, Michigan.