when it was finally warm again, we let the horses
out of the stable to feed on the new grass growing
in the front yard. I'd always be the Indian
my cousin, the cowboy, and we'd run screaming after
one another in an obstacle course between the horses.
I fell in love with Jason because the horses did, I think
Daisy and Dodge would let him drop from an overhanging tree branch
onto their backs without a twitch. I tried with Daisy
once, ended up flying halfway across the yard, and that was enough
for me. "She just don't like Injuns," Jason said
holding me in his strong, sunburned arms
while I tried to catch my breath
and I tried not to cry.
he married young, so young, and his wife
tried to kill me the first time she met me
a twenty-year-old maniac who drove with a kitchen knife laying in her lap
told me he had confessed to being in love with me
told her all sorts of quiet things about me
I tried to explain that things happen when kids grow up together
sure as curious farm animals, cats and dogs in heat
but she didn't just didn't want to listen.
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.
I will know I have lived a good life
when everything I own
at the time of my death
can fit into a shoebox
you can slip under the bed
so when you want to talk
or just remember
you can reach down beneath the covers
and pull all of me out
the poems, our rings
the last good photographs
of the two of us together
we can always be together.
I won't take up much room.
Holly Day is a housewife and mother of two living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her poetry has recently appeared in The Oxford American, The Midwest Quarterly, and Coal City Review. She recently co-authored the book, Guitar All-in-One for Dummies, with guitarist Jim Peterik of the band Survivor, and just finished writing the second edition of another of her books, Music Theory for Dummies.
Comments (closed)
nativedancer
2011-07-20 10:52:06
she hits hard and deep, always has, and never fails to engage her reader head-on.
i don't know from guitar, but her poetry aint for dummies.