New Poetry by Holly Day

Out in the Garden

The morning glory vines are trying to 

hold me in place, I can feel them tremble

beneath my feet, tiny fingers twisting in 

endless curlicues,  bursting into purple 

flower from the exertion of trapping me. 

I pull my foot away, take another step, 

can feel the ground sigh behind me as 

the morning glories stretch futile and 

then retreat. 

The lilies are trying to stab me to 

death, I can feel their tiny points

poke up through the soil and 

stop at the bottom of my feet. If I 

just stayed here, stayed still, 

the tiny red points would push all 

the way through my flesh, my bone, 

crown bright green and brilliant 

through the tops of my feet and burst 

into bloom. I lift my foot carefully, 

step over the vengeful clumps 

of hybrids and orientals 

just in time. 

- © Holly Day 2020

Holly Day (hollylday.blogspot.com) has been a writing instructor at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis since 2000. Her poetry has recently appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Grain, and Harvard Review, and her newest poetry collections are Into the Cracks (Golden Antelope Press), Cross Referencing a Book of Summer (Silver Bow Publishing), The Tooth is the Largest Organ in the Human Body (Anaphora Literary Press), and Book of Beasts (Weasel Press).