holly day
Lost Dog
The parts of my childhood I can remember
are disjointed, unsuited for a house
or a school or a world
made of the stable things I read about
all the time in good books.
I got lost. I am, even now, certain that each new home
won’t be comfortable for long,
clinging to the hope
that we are suitable hosts for each other’s misery. I tell you
home is more than the back seat of a car.
Even leaves separate from trees
before curling up to die.
On the Discovery of the Existence of Another Golden Calf
This is how God must have felt
looking down at His people dancing around the golden calf
when they thought His back was turned, surreptitiously kissing
fist-sized idols shoved deep in their pockets
when they thought He wasn’t looking
whispering heresy in one another’s ears
lies about other true gods that were nicer and better than Him
when they thought He couldn’t hear.
Myself, I am a maelstrom of anger and defeat
hands full of hotel receipts gathered from pockets
detailing lunch dates spent beneath cheap sheets
a second cell phone full of phone numbers I don’t recognize
matchbooks from nightclubs I’ve only seen advertised on TV.
I long to storm and gnash and wreak tidal vengeance
on all of these things that have separated him from me
blind him into submissions, into acceptance, but I
know that this is not the way to bring someone back to Love.
this hopelessness, this defeat, this slow burning of love letters
from a stranger somehow better than me.
Holly Day’s writing has recently appeared in Analog SF, The Hong Kong Review, and Appalachian Journal. She currently teaches at the Loft Literary Center in Minnesota, the Richard Hugo House in Washington, and WriterHouse in Virginia. Read more of her work on pioneertown here.