Letting Go of the Conceit by Holly Day

Imparting tiny grains of colored sand with intricate thoughts

One giant flower covering the ground. It was so beautiful

I wanted take it home with me.

After it was done, he smeared great swaths of color against itself until

It was nothing but white sand.

It should have changed my life. I should have taken it away with me

Let his day disappear in the pursuit of beauty, but just the beauty of the moment.

I fully intended to go home and erase everything I had ever written

With the artist’s apparent satisfaction at the act of creation

Should be enough for me, too. 

Holly Day, Minnesota, USA 

The Corner by Holly Day

the beetle in the
web clicks soft
in time to the spinning of its
body in the long arms of the spider
that has made its home in
the dark corner of
my office. it clicks
so regular I turn off my computer, my
desk clock to make sure it's
really him

the clicks speed up
when the spider
reaches out
with one long, pale
leg to spin
the trapped insect
another turn, they slow down
fade to near
silence whenever
the spider
pulls away


Holly Day, Minnesota, USA

The Fallen Niche of Apollo by Holly Day

Hand over hand up the side of the cliff
we grappled with the side of Olympus
no one sane had ever tried before, especially not
in the middle of winter. The world stretched around us
like Galileo’s Europa; we were a million miles from Earth
on our way to meet the gods.
Not even mountain goats disturbed the breathless
quiet—we passed a blocked-up cave that one man said
had once housed an oracle. I could picture
the crazy old man who had lived there, years
before Christ, brown arms wrapped around anemic knees
shaking, begging Apollo
for an end to the winter.




Holly Day, Minnesota, USA