Like Snakes on Asphalt
My father’s horizon was always Nebraska, he never grew past being a tiny spot surrounded by miles of cattle-flattened silage stunted sagebrush. I don’t know the names of either of my horizons, can only guess at who lives in the row of dark houses across the street. I am also an unnecessary pinpoint surrounded by flat, black asphalt waves of heat radiating from crumbling tar.
Harvest
we found the tomatoes grew best in the cemetery sending their thick roots deep into the soil, wrapping thickly-furred cilia between sinew and bone, found new life in places left for the dead. we threw our seeds random between the overgrown plots, hoping the tiny plants would escape the eyes of the caretaker, the blades of his mower the heavy footsteps of other people visiting other graves. late summer, when the vines rose high climbed around the rough trunks of ancient willows of firs we crept into the graveyard, baskets under our arms collected enough ripe fruit to last through the long, cold winter ahead.
Holly Day’s poetry has recently appeared in The Cape Rock,New Ohio Review, and Gargoyle. Her newest poetry collections are A Perfect Day for Semaphore (Finishing Line Press), In This Place, She Is Her Own (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press), A Wall to Protect Your Eyes (Pski’s Porch Publishing), I’m in a Place Where Reason Went Missing (Main Street Rag Publishing Co.), and The Yellow Dot of a Daisy (Alien Buddha Press).