Holly Painter is a poet, writer, and editor from southeast Michigan. Her first book of poetry, Excerpts from a Natural History, was published by Titus Books in Auckland, New Zealand in 2015. Her poetry, fiction, and essays have also been published in literary journals and anthologies in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore. Holly teaches writing and literature at the University of Vermont.

 

The Strait

 

There is no street where I live

The leaves of the houseplants rattle

A town of scorched earth and fire escapes,

the city beside the strait

 

Only the inner layers pasted over remain

Today is not a shade of anything

a city grown weary of rebirth

of the scent of raspberries and wood

 

The place that made your cars

will open itself to you tonight

on land that cannot be new

as the hush or the day or

 

the air blowing between rotting boards

that gird the soggier organs

the scaffolding of a rust empire

with wild dogs for sentries

~

Eight

 

Mammatus clouds hover over telephone lines,

fingertips poised to pluck the strings of a guitar.

 

Neil hangs upside-down from the tire swing

jabbing at roly-polies until his stick snaps.

 

He dismounts with a neat somersault and

brushes the woodchips from his ecto green windbreaker.

 

Next year, his parents will split. He’ll move with his mom

to the neighborhood where all the wild boys live.

 

I climb the slide, boots slip-squeaking,

and thump up to a landing caked with wet-pulped leaves.

 

He’ll take pills in high school and get suspended for fighting

while I rack up scholarships and slice myself with broken lightbulbs.

 

I scout the woods where we’re not allowed to go.

It’s almost dark and there are no birds.

 

A flashing needle strings white light across the sky

and then fades as a crash rends the day,

 

a smoker clearing his throat

before spitting out a thunderstorm,

and we run.

~

Beside the Church

 

Rain between the digging

and the burying meant

summer afternoons of

muddy swimming holes

 

We leapt from earthmovers

shrieking as we plunged underground,

ballooned our breath in our cheeks,

and spit out dirty bubbles

 

We sliced a worm with a spade

and the dead fell out

but we were small gods:

we’d made another worm

 

We sprawled in new grass

thin tufts in the dirt

looked straight up the rain

to the black

 

and imagined

dirt coming down

~

Feed Me

 

Feed me only what is necessary

What is tender might be necessary

 

Feed me the train like a chain of clay beads

encircling the lady’s green wrist

 

its boxcars brown as a burlap sack

caked with the mud of potatoes

 

Feed me the red you suck off a candy cane

leaving a stabbing white icicle

 

Then feed me the icicle

the seasonal stalactite

 

that drips itself to life and death

Melt it for me with your breath

 

Feed me your grab bag face:

your punched in nose and your

 

beautiful eyes that can only be

the churning surf you kept

 

Feed my teenage demand

that you be everything:

 

breakfast, lunch, and dinner

morning, noon, and night

 

Feed me only what is necessary

and all you are is necessary

 

I’d feed you too, I would,

but I can never be just another

 

warm-blooded host

that’s not paying attention

~

Apologetics of a College Freshman

 

To the termites of the last empire:

Sorry, but we chew our own cities now

inflate them in the mornings

sour apple bubblegum

and swallow them at night

not the other way around

 

To the tobacconists of the old century:

Sorry, but we roll our own now

stash Mom and Dad in the Christmas cupboard

and take them out to wrap around boxes

crease their edges and trim the excess

while Mom’s still flatly nattering away

 

To the factory farmers of yesteryear:

Sorry, but we grow our own now

sprinkle the seeds of children in classroom

plumbing – they sprout from the walls

absorb their math and science and then

we pluck them and send them to college in vases

 

To the bankers of ages past:

Sorry, but we save our own now

drop kisses in jam jars with buttons

and cursing coins and wishes and

every extra Sunday we save till the

end of our days and then spend

 

To the gods of a time gone by:

Sorry, but we are our own now

fathers, mothers, devils, angels

prophets, priests, chosen people

and if we seem a touch surreal

well, let’s be honest, so were you