Three
how soft my child’s
hand is, bright thing
eyes wide with light.
The Secret
boys from the neighborhood used to stop by
my mom would let them in, offer them juice
talk about the weather and then we would leave
I’d fuck them under the pine trees in back
in my neighbor’s barn, in the garage
afterwards, my mother would tell me
that I must really be popular to have
so many boys coming by to see me, that she could tell
that they all really liked me, ask me
what was my secret
The Morning After
I pretend I’m blind so they won’t bother me
but I have been alive just long enough
to read men even
with my eyes closed, hands out, fingers
reading the Braille of sweat on skin.
if Joey wants to talk to me about how
I killed his brother, that’s just fine. Joey
can come in and sit
beside me, here, on the prison
cot, and I’ll tell him the story
of how the world looks when everything you see
is tinted red, how even flowers look
suspicious when you’ve
just killed a man. I pretend I’m
deaf so they won’t talk to me, but I
have been alive just long enough to know when
someone is in my room, can feel footsteps
through the soles of my
feet, know exactly when to strike
at invisible things. if Joey
wants to hear why I killed his brother, that’s fine.
Joey can come in and lie beside me,
here, beneath the stiff
white sheets of the prison cot, and
I’ll tell him about how the world
sounds when your ears are full of blood, and how
even songbirds sound suspicious
when you’ve just killed a man.
Prayer for My Daughter
let her grow up to be absolutely
devastating, the type of woman
men fall all over themselves to see smile
let her be so beautiful
that even important people go speechless
when she walks into a room.
let her grow up to stay the smart
bossy little monster she is now
who knows she has the world
Culture
I wonder if the flowers mind me prying their petals
gently apart, revealing stamen dripping with pollen
reaching in with my cotton swab
to fertilize the trembling anthers
or do they resent this rape, this involuntary impregnation
do the flowers fear me when I enter the garden
with my tools of eugenic experimentation?
About the author:
Holly Day is a travel writing instructor living in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with her husband and two children. Her most recent nonfiction books are Music Theory for Dummies, Music Composition for Dummies, and Walking Twin Cities.
