Holly Day (yves@orbiter.com) has appeared most recently in Webgeist, Stained Pages, and Palace Corbie.






Tail End of a Seasonal Breakdown

and here I am again, exactly where I was
almost five years ago--nothing's changed,
the promises of redemption I made God and my body
broken, hands gripped white at my sides
at the nurse's caution smile
"Congratulations."

kittens, my Siamese cat had kittens
once, my father didn't like cats
and she knew it. came home from school one day
found six broken baby necks
blood on their mother's lips and I know now
why she did it--there just
wasn't room

too late, half-remembered remedies
from women's health magazines, herbs
and plant bulbs unheard of
at the grocery store, untried antidotes
secrets shared between girls at school
still-life's of women dying
coat hanger tragedies--oh, Mommy
where were you when







Revelations Of

rode the bus with an angel this morning. he was
fat, middle-aged, blad, and black, wearing
a lot of expensive gold jewelry, but I
knew he was an angel anyway. I pressed
the rubber alarm strip for him
when we pulled up to his stop.
"I will see you again
tomorrow," he said. But I slept late the next day
and missed the bus.

walked home that night thinking about Jesus, thinking specifically
about naming a cat Jesus, so I could yell
"Jesus! Get off the couch!" or "Jesus!
C'mere, boy!" ask my roommates
if they had seen Jesus, ask
if they could help me find Jesus--when suddenly, I heard
a kitten crying, somewhere in the bushes ahead,
and though I looked and looked all over
I couldn't find it
anywhere.

and I keep finding homeless people
with the same names of friends
I know are dead: sweet, toothless old men
with all-too-familiar expressions and habits and

this morning I touched a dead lizard
and it woke up
in my bare hands.
back to author list