HOLLY DAY - POEMS

Holly Day’s poetry has recently appeared in Plainsongs, The Long Islander, and The Nashwaak Review. Her newest poetry collections are In This Place, She Is Her Own (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press), A Wall to Protect Your Eyes (Pski’s Porch Publishing), Folios of Dried Flowers and Pressed Birds (Cyberwit.net), Where We Went Wrong (Clare Songbirds Publishing), and  Into the Cracks (Golden Antelope Press) .

​The Night Out

​on our knees we
drag the rope
make a circle
to keep the snakes out. stake down the tent
roll out the sleeping bags, set
the camp stove
on low, make soup.
 
the children’s eyes glow
in the dying
light of the setting sun, cheeks
pink with anticipation
of sleeping under the stars. moonlight
makes the shadows creep
far across the desert and up into
the hills.
 
I nestle
my head against
my husband’s chest and dream.
 

​The Wife

​hand in hand, fingers locked
in a bright show
of marital bliss, smile for
the outside world
to see. no reflection of nightly
rituals of blood
and bone, of skin against metal
the room with a
 
drain in the floor. her smile is
carefully controlled, quiet
years of hiding
a mouth full of
chipped, dying teeth, lips rouged to hide the hairline
splits in her flesh, the way the
 
skin puckers
in too many directions
when she tries to speak. he shelters her with
his body in public, banishing questions from
friends and family who ask
why she never calls anymore.

​The Wooden Man

​a man made of wood would be a much more practical being
than a man made of flesh, a man with knotted arms
coarse flesh, rough bark, rooted to the ground
unable to leave. I imagine the women
of those long ago forests carrying
new babies in their arms, determined to forget
who the single sperm on that single night
came from, I see those women
 
holding their babies up to the best trees
the old, tall ones with birds in their crowns
squirrels in their crooks, rabbits under their roots
saying, “This is your father, ” spinning elaborate
but believable tales of strong, beautiful, dependable dryads
visiting sleeping children during the night, planting
dew-damp and sap-scented kisses on tow-framed foreheads
whispering the secrets of the forest in their tiny
sleeping ears, and how the tree outside your door
 
is the thing that makes this home.

​  New Letter

​the air is getting dry
there’s no more rain
cigarette smoke
follows me out to the porch.
 
I miss you, keep waking
to dreams where you
are here but
you don’t want
don’t need me anymore.
 
I have cats
and kittens
that sleep with me now.
I wish
I could talk
to them like I talk
 
to you. I have
things waiting
here for you, things
you’d like if you’d
just come home.
I’ll keep them safe.
 

​The Ride

​I still wave at trains as they rumble by, in lieu
of being on board myself, imagine all of
the places the passengers must be going,
all of the places I could go if I was on the train:
 
perhaps seated next to some dusty child
a photograph of some far-off relative tucked into
her pocket, or perhaps, more adventurously
a well-dressed spy pretending to sleep, or just
 
someone going to the store. I still wave at trains
as they rumble by, imagine
it’s my face pressed to the glass, watching
someone just like me.