The VGP Literate No. 10

From the Garden

I come in from the garden and I’m covered
in slugs. Tiny slabs of snot with antennae waving
slowly moving over my sandaled
feet, pausing in confusion at trying to pass
a particularly thick black ankle hair
navigating the rough etched surface
of a heavy Tibetan silver bracelet.
I don’t touch my hair because
I don’t want to know they’re there, wrapped in tangles
dreadlocks with chewy centers.

I pull my clothes off by the washing machine
and start the hot rinse cycle immediately, reconciling
my guilt at running the washing machine
with only two items of clothing in it
with images of hordes of horrible soft bodies
tumbling through the soapy water with my clothes
hopefully boiled alive.

Disappeared

the puzzle that makes up our neighborhood
I will never be able to stand the empty look
they wiped away every trace of you and your family.

the people who move into your empty house
don’t belong here in the puzzle that makes up our neighborhood
they wiped away every trace of you and your family
what happen to all the pieces?

the day came, moving trucks pulled up to take away
boxes and boxes that belonged to people I knew
and I will never see again

the empty windows of your house.

Holly Day is a housewife and mother of two living in Minneapolis, Minnesota who teaches needlepoint classes for the Minneapolis school district and writing classes at The Loft Literary Center. Her poetry has recently appeared in Hawai’i Pacific Review, Slant, and The Tampa Review, and she is the 2011 recipient of the Sam Ragan Poetry Prize from Barton College. Her most recent published books are “Walking Twin Cities” and “Notenlesen für Dummies Das Pocketbuch.”