noteworthy
In each issue, the editors choose a writer they would like to bring
to the readers' attention.In this issue, Holly Day is highlighted.
"I wish // you’d left me a key." Holly Day says in the first poem of this selection, a poem about a failed relationship. The juxtaposition of the interior to the exterior is indeed a key to these poems. "I open my mouth and imagine birds are going to fly out." What happens inside must come out, must find its way into the world "As only a croak, a whisper, a quiet and stuttering end." Let us watch as each of these poems finds its way out.
Still Away
Tiny, Pointed Teeth
The Poet
The Temporary Nature of Poetry
Under the Lights
The Funeral
Beautiful Emptiness
Denial
I missed you so much when you left I couldn’t breathe. No, I didn’t miss you at all,
I just kept thinking about all the things, the tiny things, the big things, the wanting
all the dependant little creatures you left behind, helpless, trapped
little creatures in your house, left
alone without food, without water, pacing, pacing, pacing, ears perking
at the sound of new mail pushed through the squeaky slot, behind the locked door
that would never open again,
all the things left behind.
In my dreams, I am still dreaming about your goldfish, the little blue-flecked translucent
minnows, the over-zealous tank snails
their bodies moldering in the bottom of the foggy glass fish bowl, the over-zealous
tank snails stripping their corpses to hair-thin skeletons, the long-nosed dolphin fish
I picked out for you
the last to remain, competing with tank snails to suck thin strains of green mold
from the clogged air filter, overturning the blue pebbles at the bottom
in search of more algae, more rot, more decay. I don’t remember
if you had a cat, but in my dreams, you had many,
they’re fighting with each other, they’re drinking water
from the fish tank, the toilet, they’re clawing at the window, begging passersby
to let them out. I wish
you’d left me a key.
Sometimes I still dream about the kittens clawing their way through my shirt kittens
With tiny claws and tiny teeth and tiny mews kittens
That once lived inside me, populated my dreams with tiny
Paws and fingertips and skin so pale and soft and white those kittens
Shoved under my shirt stuffed beneath my skin those kittens
I would never have been able to take care of those kittens
I never asked for and never wanted those kittens
Who would have died a long time ago even if they had managed
To make it to the outside world.
The ship crashes against the rocks and a poem
Forms in her head right as she flies over the railing
Something so perfect and beautiful it must be written down
Must be remembered. She invokes the first stanza
For the otters watching curiously from the rocks,
The seals lounging carelessly on the beach
The dolphins she knows must be lurking just past the shallows
Because there are always dolphins watching shipwrecks
And dolphins are smart and literate enough to understand.
She shouts the lines as clearly as she can
Despite the screaming of the other passengers
Despite the rending, grinding agony of the hull against the rocks
Despite the shrieks of the confused seagulls whirling overhead
Because she knows this is a poem that cannot be lost
And somebody has to be left behind to carry it on.
The Temporary Nature of Poetry
there’s no need to balance color
to be paced to a danceable beat
just turn the page
prepare the wooden frame
wrap the painting around your thoughts
pound the nails in one at a time
there’s no need to labor to match words
to music, to craft lyrics of need
just close your eyes
stop talking.
I open my mouth and imagine birds are going to fly out
That inside me are flocks of birds that have struggled
With captivity for years. I will the birds to take form
Encourage them to force their way through my body, through my skin
Can almost feel their tiny claws struggling to find purchase
Along the slick, wet meat inside my chest.
Nothing comes out and I am empty, I don’t understand
I thought there was something better than me in here. The audience
Stares at me in impatient confusion from rows of folded metal chairs
They came here to see me do something special.
They came to see something wonderful, or just something.
The bird song I thought I had dies in my throat, comes out finally
As only a croak, a whisper, a quiet and stuttering end.
I think about them dying and wonder
how I can be expected
to hand their bodies over to strangers
to be buried in a grave
far from home, far from me
when all I really want is to be allowed to
carry bits of them with me
for the rest of my own life
the fingerbones of children in my pocket
or on a string around my neck,
twin rosaries of vertebra wrapped loose
around my wrists
so I can raise my hands
to my lips, in prayer, to speak
to a husband
I will never let go
I have spent too many nights
pantomiming nightmares—
I will not sleep
with her sweat on our sheets.
We will not get through this.
I am afraid to come home, afraid
that there is nothing left to tie us together.
I have spent too many nights listening to your breathing
with her sweat on our sheets.
You have me.
There will be no songs between us.
I have been drinking too many suicide songs
in your name, dreaming of walking in on you, on her--
we never existed.
I have spent too many nights
thinking of you to know
we will not get through this.
Together, but only
in my memory.
Vigilante, just a boy in a uniform
knocked them onto their backs, an activist
with a pipe bomb, ended up flying halfway home
in pieces with convictions
both in Spanish and in English.
There were nights
when he held me
frozen in his strong fears
crying at the deaths his beliefs promised;
so young, I ignored only his words
he tried to kill me the first time, and again.
The twenty-year-old maniac who lived down the street
confessed to being so, and I
told him all sorts of quiet things about me
to make it even, even
tried to explain what I saw in him
the lies.
Holly Day has taught writing classes at the Loft Literary Center in Minnesota, since 2000. Her published books include Music Theory for Dummies, Music Composition for Dummies, Guitar All-in-One for Dummies, Piano All-in-One for Dummies, Walking Twin Cities, Insider’s Guide to the Twin Cities, Nordeast Minneapolis: A History, and The Book Of, while her poetry has recently appeared in New Ohio Review, SLAB, and Gargoyle. Her newest poetry book, Ugly Girl, just came out from Shoe Music Press.
