You can’t count on nature spirits to find
babies wrapped in old sheets, by the side
of the road and under the trees, gasping for their first breaths
not quite alive, simply abandoned. You can’t count
on fox-headed women, sylphs with cow tails
to be there to find babies left behind
in rest station bathrooms on lonely country roads
to come just in time to stop those tiny cries
to save those tiny fingers twitching in lines of ash
left by cigarettes burning out on wet tile.
——
Holly Day has taught writing classes at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, since 2000. Her poetry has recently appeared in Big Muddy, The Cape Rock, New Ohio Review, and Gargoyle, and her published books include Walking Twin Cities, Music Theory for Dummies, Ugly Girl, and The Yellow Dot of a Daisy. She has been a featured presenter at Write On, Door County (WI), North Coast Redwoods Writers’ Conference (CA), and the Spirit Lake Poetry Series (MN). Her newest poetry collections, A Perfect Day for Semaphore (Finishing Line Press) and I’m in a Place Where Reason Went Missing (Main Street Rag Publishing Co.) will be out late 2018.