Charcoal paintings of a phlegmatic wheeze
All black, I look at my hands and they’re all black
How do you draw a portrait of a soul
When there’s this cacophony problematic choir
That won’t stop banging and clanging in my ears? Bad!
Outside, even the moon speaks discontent. The moon.
It’s rising.
Never mind the evil of the color black,
I should just start with black paper. After pouring my soul
Out onto white paper I just turn it black, anyway, the choir!
Even the accordion in the orchestra says I’m bad
And there is no accordion in the orchestra pit. The moon
Outside wanes and waxes alternately, one night, rising
Full and bloated at dusk, pale and wheezing
By dawn. Analyze my soul, turn it into a song for a choir
To belt out at lunchtime, some bad monologue dedicated to the moon
Rising like a bellhop and wheezing like Krishna
Penned in ashes on a slate of granite, black smudges on black rock, black words, black thoughts.
About Holly Lalena Day
Holly Day’s most recent projects include writing a biography of Columbian pop star Shakira, a guitar tutorial book, and a Minnesota tour guidebook. Her poetry, fiction, and nonfiction have most recently appeared in January, Philadelphia Poets, and California Quarterly. She currently works as a reporter and a writing instructor in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and lives with her two children and husband.
Other pieces by Holly Lalena Day For My Husband
just being here somehow means
that I’ve won, that every path
I wandered down, blind or misguided
brought me here
and this is enough for me, you are
a conclusion worth going through it all for
and waking up beside you each morning
is all the evidence I need to tell me
I was right, and that every wrong move I made
to get here
was right, because this
is all I will ever need.
Holly Day
The Wolf
she hungers
from behind the stacks of boulders
crated in from her
original home, the mismatched grove
of pine and oak
that never quite smell
like they belong to the ground.
she waits
for the zoo to close for the night, for the crowds
of curious children, mothers with infants
men
to go home, taking with them
the longings that will never be met
pretending to be content with just
howling, alone, at the moon.
Holly Day
My Cat
she curls, content, around my arm
and purrs, and I wonder
what I mean to her, what it means
to be my cat, bedmate, comfort
how the two of us came to be
so familiar with each other
and why it all seems
so perfectly natural
Holly Day
Perennials
petals unfurl like
tiny valentines
flowers bursting open
as if they , too, love
Spring
bobbing to and fro
as they open,
touched
by invisible hands,
invisible fingers coax
the pink buds awake
to celebrate
Holly Day
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