top of page

Selected Poetry by Holly Day

Holly Day


Photo Source: GetArchive



The Secret Admirers

 

The June bugs thump against my window at night

and it sounds like someone knocking, I turn on the light

and it’s just bugs bumping against the window pane.

Because it’s midnight it should be something magical

a crow, a mouse, a squirrel, a little person

but because this is the real world it’s just a cluster of insects

throwing themselves against the side of my house, my window

again and again, driven by something that can only explained by scientists

who have textbooks and nametags that announce they’re entomologists.

 

In the morning, I find their shiny brown corpses

littered in the gravel in front of my window, as if

throwing themselves against my window was just too much,

or perhaps they threw themselves into my window because it was all too much.

I wonder what sort of crisis could make a little bug

want to end it all in such a dramatic way

and I think of those scientists, those entomologists, that might have the answer

think about calling one of them up to ask

but I don’t know any, and I wouldn’t have a clue how to start.





Audubon

 

If Audubon had had a camera when he was traveling across the continent

drawing in his journal of different birds, do you think

he would have still killed all those birds before he posed them

would he have just spent his day stretched out on the grass, taking picture after picture

stuffing rolls of film in his pockets to take home, or even better

memory cards with thousands of photographs saved

safely tucked away to download when he returned home?

 

Or do you think

given the opportunity to do anything he wanted with these birds

he would have taken even freakier pictures of them, dead and pliable

perhaps loaded his suitcase with tiny hats, walking sticks, coats and shoes

little sets of furniture? Would he be known for surrealism instead of naturalism,

inspired macabre hordes of bird collectors, armed with slingshots and bb guns

and not the determined naturalists with binoculars

that fill the parks on warm, summer days?




Collapsing

 

When I close my eyes I night I dream of all of the places I’ve been

the lonely country roads I’ve been lost on, the ocean crashing on the beach

the sound of frogs and crickets filling a night so warm and damp

it was hard to believe I was anywhere near civilization.

When I close my eyes I dream I can leave this place

without repercussion, without worry, without fear. I used to make fun of

 

the old people I knew who were terrified to step out into their city

because of crime, were terrified to leave their house

because things had changed too  much, I used to tell everyone

I’d never be like that when I got old, but I never thought

going outside might kill me, just from breathing, just from hugging a friend

just from petting someone else’s dog, just from not washing my hands

 

from going to the store. My world is getting smaller and smaller

and my dreams have turned into the adventures of someone else.




Holly Day’s writing has recently appeared in Analog SF, Cardinal Sins, and New Plains Review, and her published books include Music Theory for Dummies and Music Composition for Dummies. She currently teaches classes at The Loft Literary Center in Minnesota, Hugo House in Washington, and The Muse Writers Center in Virginia.

Comments


bottom of page