Monday, January 4, 2010

Short bio: Holly Day is a journalism 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. Her poetry has most recently appeared in Bottle, The MacGuffin, and Not One of Us.

A Little Opening

Yesterday,

I woke to find the skin of my hand

had slipped off the bones and pooled

beside my head. My feet

are all bone now as well

one hard, yellow knob of a kneecap exposed.

I have begun painting my skeleton

color-coding the days as each piece

is laid bare. My right foot is blue. My left foot

and kneecap are both red for Tuesday.

My hand and part of my jawbone

Are emerald green.

I am saving the discarded flesh

to make into a dress, something for only

special occasions. The individual strips

are stretched out on a wire rack

in my refrigerator, where the milk

and the juice

used to go.


North Pole Dreams

little Eskimos everywhere

screaming

“please don’t squeeze the skunk!”

a kaleidoscope in shades of red

as seals were converted

to the religion of Nordstrom’s

and sent to Sax Fifth Avenue hell

a snow-white bear with a Santa Claus hat

breathed upon my neck

gave me goosebumps from here to there

then hit me ’til I was dead.


Boots XII

The small boy was lying in a pile of corpses.

Skin peeled away like the flesh of a potato.

Bombs set off just over the next hill, a sunset in the wrong direction.

Boots kicked the boy.

You will get a brief five minutes in a Time Life home video for this.

If your own child is born with no arms or legs, will it seem unfair?

Someday, reporters will ask you what you did during the war.

“Let’s play a game,” Boots said to the boy.

The child’s arms were around the waist of his mother.

The boy’s eyes opened as if in shock.

The child’s arms were around the waist of his mother.

Someday, this will all be washed away in Prozac numbness,
in the peace of a military nursing home.

In war, certain people become shining stars.

“You are not really dead.”

No blood poured from the black holes in the boy’s body.

The sharp metal of the razors sliced thin through the boy’s face.

The white of the little boy’s eyes stared straight at Boots.


The Party

upstairs

in the closet

she pounds on the door

with her club-like hands

and tries to get out

fumbling with the door handle

downstairs

in the kitchen

her brother

fixes the little finger sandwiches

for the soon-to-arrive

guests

fat pig of a girl

sits crying in the corner

pictures herself

stretched out on the table

with an apple in her mouth


Waiting

how long must we wait

for salvation to come

for fulfillment of the Revelation

for peace on Earth

for the first contact

with outer space

for the total destruction

of the human race

how long must we wait

how long can we wait

Helpless I do not know if good intentions prevail among the elected, among the appointed, leaving me apprehensive that the fate ...