HOLLY DAY

Swiss Army Knife

The soldier stumbles in place

takes two tottering steps forward

before falling. He pushes himself back up a  moment later,

but his legs are behaving like they did when he was a child

taking those first, wobbly steps from one parent to another.

It’s just easier to stay down.

Bullets fly over his head, he imagines he can see them sparkling

in the brief, bright rays of sunshine that pierce the heavy clouds of smoke

like stars peeking out through a dark fog

like fireflies winking through the leaves of a willow

overhanging the pond by his childhood home.

When you slow this last breath down

it’s like falling asleep

everything turns into something else.

The Depth of it All

Hobbled by the vastness of space

and the repeated questions of what could be

if only the stars weren’t so far away.

They say we know less about our own oceans

than we do about the stars and planets and our moon

but I’ve been in the ocean, if only a little bit of it

and I’ve never been to space.

Hobbled by the futility of time, we can only

write down what we know about these things

hope future generations can read our cribbed handwriting,

the scribbles in the margins, the last-minute notes

there’s never enough room for it all.

Holly Day's writing has recently appeared in Analog SF, Talking River, and New Plains Review, and her published books include Music Theory for Dummies and Music Composition for Dummies. She currently teaches classes at The Loft Literary Center in Minnesota, Hugo House in Washington, and the Indiana Writers’ Center.

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