Holly Day writes

Drift   

The astronaut drifts, or stays perfectly still, or is yanked

thousands of miles a minute through space -- it’s hard to tell

because it’s space, and all three scenarios are a possibility.

It’s only when the body collides with something solid

can one tell how fast the astronaut is moving

or how fast the object hitting the white-suited figure is.

Until collision, the white-suited body will continue

still or drifting or speeding through space, frozen and perfect

for thousands of years, or maybe there is just enough oxygen

left in the suit to allow the microbes that cause decay to continue

breaking the body down until there is nothing

but the clean, white eye sockets of a skull staring through the glass

or perhaps the organisms will live only long enough to collapse

the eyes inward, to stretch the skin gaunt, before asphyxiating themselves

or perhaps some combination of time and temperature

the fluctuating gravities of passing comets and nearby planets

will cause the body to disintegrate under forces we know nothing about

rendering the astronaut to a boot full of dust

glittering particles indistinguishable from the stuff of stars. 

Dead Astronaut -- Christopher Warren  

Holly Day writes

Again and Again

The phone rings in the middle of the night

and I let the answering machine get it, the voice crawls out

through the tiny plastic speaker like something

sad and wet. “It’s me,” it gurgles, “I’m here

I’m still waiting, where are you?”

I don’t know who it is so I stand there by the phone, waiting

for the caller to hang up, give up, try the number

of the person they’re trying to reach again, but they don’t.

The coughing, the choking, the gasping continues,

“Where are you? Hello? Hello?”

My daughter comes into the kitchen to stand next to me and asks

“Who is it?” I motion for her to be quiet, as though

the person attached to that horrible voice can hear us talk

as if that person knows we’re standing here, waiting for him or her to go away.

“Why don’t you just answer it?” she asks

before tiptoeing back to her bedroom.

After a while, it’s only breathing, sighing and gasping

like someone’s fallen asleep while holding the phone, but then:

“I’m here, I’m here, where are you? I’m here!”

Finally, the machine hangs up

on its own, having run out of storage space.

The little readout blinks “1” in red over and over

I have one missed call, there is one message on my machine

this one new message and that is all.

Holly Day writes

Sacrifice

The road is an angry snake, buckling up beneath you

twisting you off your feet and to your knees.

Some people say they live on the road, but no one lives

on the road -- the road lives on you, sucks the youth out of you

like a snake sucking milk out of a piece of wet bread

leaves you dry and old and bony, white-haired and squint-eyed

skin brown and cracked from too much sun.

You might trick someone fresh on the path

that you’re wise and you’ve learned something by living out here

that you radiate past adventures and illicit, no-consequences conquests

but it’s all an illusion, and you’ve become part of the trap.

You’re the bait.

The road is a vicious snake, twisting to both ends of the horizon

and you never know if you’re walking towards a head that will devour you

but you might as well just accept that you are. Sometimes

the road is a snake with two heads. Somewhere out there

is an ocean, or your family, or a broken-down car

with a glovebox packed with treasure

something that might all of this worthwhile, a Capital D Destination

but that’s not for you anymore, now that you’re out here.

These are the impossible dreams that will haunt your campsite at night

as you’re lulled to sleep by the hissing of passing cars

and something else.

Holly Day writes

Short Piece About a Hawk

There's this hawk that's been terrorizing the rabbits in our neighborhood all summer and fall and now. It eats everything but the head of the rabbit, which it just drops wherever the hell it wants. You can walk down my street at any given moment and find a dead rabbit's head just lying there in the middle of the sidewalk, or poking comically out of a snowbank as though it’s watching you.

Anyway, my neighbor, Carol, was saying that she usually find three or four of these heads in her yard almost every morning. She used to have trouble with students taking the parking spot in front of her house, but now that she has dead rabbit heads all over her yard, they're scared to park there. So something good's coming out of it.

Holly Day writes

The Little Rabbit

I saw the little rabbit when I was taking the trash out

to the communal apartment dumpster

lying in the middle of the drive on its side, chest moving up and down

a little wet, red bubble forming in one nostril. Someone had hit the rabbit just right

just enough to break its neck or its back but not dead-on, not enough to flatten it

or kill it outright. I put the kitchen garbage in the dumpster and went over to the rabbit

knelt down beside it, saw it tracking me with its wild, wide open eyes.

In every movie I’ve ever seen, every story I’ve read

you’re supposed to put injured animals

out of their misery, but it just never seemed right to me.

How much is too much for an animal? And if they’re so close to the end,

like this tiny brown rabbit was

what if they want every last minute they’re allotted? Who am I to steal those

last, precious moments from it?

Carefully, I slipped my hands under its warm little body, felt its heart

beating so fast against my palm, took it over to the side of the driveway

set it down beneath a hedge, somewhere it could feel soft grass and dirt

one last time, instead of the hard, rough asphalt

that smelled of oil and garbage. I thought if the rabbit was going to die anyway

it might as well die somewhere sweet and soft.  It squeaked a little when I set it down

I probably hurt it, I hope I didn’t.

I don’t know why, but a few weeks later

when I was filling out an application form for a job I really wanted to get

when they asked me about something I’d recently done

that I’d been particularly proud of, like some kind of award or achievement.

all I could think about was that rabbit, and how I really felt good

that I’d moved it from the driveway to the grass to die.

I wrote a few lines about the experience, which turned into something

that wrapped around the bottom of the page

and needed to finish somewhere near the middle of the blank back side.

I  guess I shouldn’t have been surprised

that I never got called back for an interview

but I’m not very good at filling out those things anyway. 

Holly Day writes

When We Get There  

we pull up to the farm and I can feel my husband

grow sad and tense in the seat next to me. The road turns into

a small gravel path that quickly disappears into thickets

of sticky motherwort and wild indigo, gentian and even

a few errant stalks of purple.

We get out of the car at almost exactly the same moment, me

struggling with the purse strap stuck to my armrest, him

struggling with whatever unspoken grief still remains from the funeral.

I point out tiny blue butterflies and noisy yellow birds to my daughter

ask her if she knows what their names are

even though I know she doesn’t, she’s only five. My husband

is already walking out to the house where his brother’s car is already parked

where his brother is already standing outside the front door, smoking a cigarette.

Later, at the hotel, we argue about what we should do with the trash piled up

inside the house, the beautiful piano covered in soot, the antique china cabinets

that won’t open because of all the rust. My sister-in-law wants the piano, wants

to fight about it, even though I tell her the soundboard’s cracked

it’s not worth the haul. We fight about tractors frozen

still and silent in the barn, the milking machines with tubes choked with mold,

the piles of newspapers and dirty clothes blocking everything but the front door.

my daughter laughs when we tell her she can take anything she wants from the house

that no one would stop her from taking a memento

from where her great-grandparents lived

she laughs because there’s nothing there anyone would want. 

 Rust and Wood -- John Foster Savage

Holly Day writes

When We Go

When I disappear, it will be
to follow some jazz trio from Eastern Europe
bent on subverting and seducing
middle-aged housewives across the country,
with plans to take us back with them
put handkerchief headgear on us
and cotton aprons wide enough
to cover our breasts completely.

We will all be pregnant
by the time the plane touches down
some with trombones, some with castanets
all of us fretting about
our American accents
how vodka doesn’t taste as good drunk from an old goat skin,
and how our lovers insist that we stop
shaving our armpits and writing home
and especially pretending this
is just another phase.

Woman with buckets and a child -- Kasimir Malevich