Contributor: Holly Day

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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 bracelet.
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.


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Holly Day’s poetry has recently appeared in The Cape Rock, New Ohio Review, and Gargoyle.

Contributor: Holly Day

- -
it’s not that I missed you when you left
it’s just that I couldn’t stop thinking about all the things
you left behind, all the dependent
little creatures in your house, left to fend for
themselves, trapped in their fishbowls
behind locked and closed doors

I keep thinking about your goldfish, picture them
floating lifeless in their bowl, the long-nosed
dolphin fish I picked out for your
tank, the baby iguanas posed on their perch
waiting for
their handful of crickets, the cats you adopted pawing
frantic at the doorknob
waiting for you to come home. I wish

you had left me a key.


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Holly Day's newest poetry book, Ugly Girl, just came out from Shoe Music Press.

Contributor: Holly Day

- -
They break away from me as soon as they can and run
to adulthood. I catch their hair in my hands, am left clutching
blond trimmings wrapped in scotch tape,
labeled with dates: first haircut, five years old, 13.
Each tiny bundle of hair is darker than the one that came before
as if they come from different children, they could have.

He stops by sometimes, a man with light brown hair
and bright blue eyes, brings me birthday presents,
flowers for Mother’s Day, has children himself
a wife that regards me with distrust and shame. I am always
the same pale woman

sitting beneath the apple tree out back
watching flowers bloom and die
with frightening speed.


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Holly Day was born in Hereford, Texas, “The Town Without a Toothache.” She and her family currently live in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she teaches writing classes at the Loft Literary Center. Her published books include the nonfiction books Music Theory for Dummies, Music Composition for Dummies, and Guitar All-in-One for Dummies, and the poetry books “Late-Night Reading for Hardworking Construction Men” (The Moon Publishing) and “The Smell of Snow” (ELJ Publications).

Contributor: Holly Day

- -
my hands wrap
around the room, tie us together
with open palms filled with sharp teeth
and words that keep you here.

outside is nothing but streetlights and hunger
sleazy bars and one-night stands
I have made myself so heavy here
you won’t be able to make me leave.


- - -
Holly Day was born in Hereford, Texas, “The Town Without a Toothache.” She and her family currently live in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she teaches writing classes at the Loft Literary Center. Her published books include the nonfiction books Music Theory for Dummies, Music Composition for Dummies, and Guitar All-in-One for Dummies, and the poetry books “Late-Night Reading for Hardworking Construction Men” (The Moon Publishing) and “The Smell of Snow” (ELJ Publications).

Contributor: Holly Day

- -
I would have had so many more poems to show you
but the priest destroyed them all when he came
said my pre-Columbian ideals, my life before him, were wrong
told me I was wrong. I stood by, penitent, as he hauled

box after box of handwritten journals
out to the curb to melt in the rain, came back
covered in sweat and ink to remind me
it was for the best, he only wanted the best

for me. I watched the codices that had recorded my life before him
disintegrate through the crack in the curtains, pretending
to keep an eye on children bicycling in the rain
that I was impatient for the mail. I watched

as history, deprived of its tongue
forgot all about me.


- - -
Holly Day was born in Hereford, Texas, “The Town Without a Toothache.” She and her family currently live in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she teaches writing classes at the Loft Literary Center. Her published books include the nonfiction books Music Theory for Dummies, Music Composition for Dummies, and Guitar All-in-One for Dummies, and the poetry books “Late-Night Reading for Hardworking Construction Men” (The Moon Publishing) and “The Smell of Snow” (ELJ Publications).

Contributor: Holly Day

- -
We could feel the spirits only when we sat by the
walls. There was something left behind by those who sat
just there, under His eyes, in the back row of hard, wooden pews
the fear of God. There was such an obvious difference between where
the good Christians and the bad Christians sat in that place.

They were as powerful as they were exotic, the ghosts
of terror, His omniscience, the flapping of stained sheets
just out of sight. Their eyes bent spades into old train cars
huddled shadows in the rusty quiet, dreams of wheels turning.

I wanted so badly to stand in the room as a light
to take a small bit of their pain into me and survive it all
next time. There are bodies in the lake out back
that need to be counted. My visions can wait
but He will never come.


- - -
Holly Day was born in Hereford, Texas, “The Town Without a Toothache.” She and her family currently live in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she teaches writing classes at the Loft Literary Center. Her published books include the nonfiction books Music Theory for Dummies, Music Composition for Dummies, and Guitar All-in-One for Dummies, and the poetry books “Late-Night Reading for Hardworking Construction Men” (The Moon Publishing) and “The Smell of Snow” (ELJ Publications).

Contributor: Holly Day

- -
I look for it everywhere, the magic
I used to see around me. I carefully check
beneath cushions before I vacuum
approach dark, spiderwebbed corners with gentle hands
lie awake to the sound of the house settling
the mice scampering in the attic, holding my breath
hoping that it’s there.

I watch my daughter playing in the yard
singing to earthworms and dancing with toads
and I know she sees all the magical things
I’m missing. I join in on her games
make fairy houses out of mud and broken seashells

share stories of how wonderful it would be
if we were frogs or fairies ourselves
and I can tell she believes
we could be those things of we really wanted to be
that being just what we are is some sort of choice
I can tell she believe this
and I wish I could, too.


- - -
Holly Day was born in Hereford, Texas, “The Town Without a Toothache.” She and her family currently live in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she teaches writing classes at the Loft Literary Center. Her published books include the nonfiction books Music Theory for Dummies, Music Composition for Dummies, and Guitar All-in-One for Dummies, and the poetry books “Late-Night Reading for Hardworking Construction Men” (The Moon Publishing) and “The Smell of Snow” (ELJ Publications).