The Literary Review
Fade to Black
In my movie
the Rapture will only lift the broken, burnt
bodies of the people who caught the first hot wave
of the bomb blast, locked outside the lead-lined
steel-girded and concrete-shielded cathedrals
housing the elite of humanity. In my movie
angels and seraphim will lift only the dead
lying in the streets outside
the crumbling ruins of civilization
the children barricaded beneath
kitchen sinks, huddled against one another
waiting for their parents to come home from work
or the store. In my movie, the upper
echelon of society
will emerge from protective cocoons
stocked with cases of tinned meat and
sparkling water to find they’ve inherited
a world burnt beyond recognition, unfit for
habitation, abandoned by God. In
my movie, these people will fall to
the ground, scream, “Why, why, why”, or some similar
hackneyed cliché, just before the picture fades
and the screen grows cold and black. It’s not
a perfect ending, but it’s all
I’m able to come up with.
It’s all I’ve got.
- Holly Day
From the Garden
I come in from the garden and I’m covered
in slugs. Tiny slabs of snot with antennae waving
slowly moving over my sandaled
feet, pausing in confusion at trying to pass
a particularly thick black ankle hair
navigating the rough etched surface
of a heavy Tibetan silver anklet.
I don’t touch my hair because
I don’t want to know they’re there, wrapped in tangles
dreadlocks with chewy centers.
I pull my clothes off by the washing machine
and start the hot rinse cycle immediately, reconciling
my guilt at running the washing machine
with only two items of clothing in it
with images of hordes of horrible soft bodies
tumbling through the soapy water with my clothes
hopefully boiled alive. If there were more clothes
in the mashing machine, the slugs would be trapped
throughout the load, might find sanctuary
in sweater pockets and socks
might make it out
alive.
- Holly Day
Midnight Caller
at night the
angry thud of the
dishwasher
sounds like monsters
the groan
of the house quietly settling sounds like
prowlers
I can almost see the deranged face
of my family’s murderer pressed against
the glass
sliding doors.
- Holly Day
Take It
folded wolf
soft flesh beside me, I
am so hot, unfurls into something I know
baby bird above me, wolf
clutched in its beak, I
touch the white skeleton man, push it up, I know
what you want, man-child, wolf
creature, put it in my head, through my head, I
dream in kaleidoscopes, know
love for fractions of seconds, wrap me in sick sweat, wolf
spit, take this burning I
am almost burning–rip me up, make me know.
- Holly Day
- Holly Day
My Places
All my favorite places have been overrun
by kids who look at me as though I’m
some old lady who lost her way, stumbled
into their club late at night on the way
to buy last-minute groceries or some important
old lady medication.
All of my regular haunts are being haunted
by children who don’t understand how important
these places are to me, children
who will grow up to become boring adults
have boring jobs, live boring lives
forget why they ever came to these places
and will wonder about
strange old ladies like me.
- Holly Day