New Porch Poems: A Wall to Protect Your Eyes

$10, 63 pages

Holly Day’s poems are elegiac, mournful and hopeful by turns, clear-eyed and richly imagistic explorations of family, nature, and humanity. The lines drift down, feathery and vivid, accumulating like memories, then floating back up into the sky. These poems will stay with you long after you’ve stopped reading.

Fractured

I close the lid of the make-up case
put it away. There are too many dreams
imaginary lessons of how to use lipstick and blush
to ever want to do my own face again.
the blues and pinks in the case are only
for little girls
that will never be.

I thumb through the photographs, wonder
if these days are worth remembering
if it’s better to pretend I never
posed by a crib in a maternity dress
holding a pink teddy bear destined only
for rummage sales and a stranger’s child.