When We Go

When I disappear, it will be
to follow some jazz trio from Eastern Europe
bent on subverting and seducing
middle-aged housewives across the country,
with plans to take us back with them
put handkerchief headgear on us
and cotton aprons wide enough
to cover our breasts completely.

We will all be pregnant
by the time the plane touches down
some with trombones, some with castanets
all of us fretting about
our American accents
how vodka doesn’t taste as good drunk from an old goat skin,
and how our lovers insist that we stop
shaving our armpits and writing home
and especially pretending this
is just another phase.
 
 

The First of Many

The tiny eggs open and larvae unfurl
cluster at the edges of the birdbath as though
already dreaming of breaking free.

I try to explain to the assembled that I, too
am like one of those little black squiggles
a midge waiting to pupate and molt

spread wings and fly away, and that they are to ignore
the crumpled husk I leave behind.
 
 
 
Holly Day has taught writing classes at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, since 2000. Her poetry has recently appeared in Tampa Review, SLAB, and Gargoyle, and her published books include Walking Twin Cities, Music Theory for Dummies, and Ugly Girl.