Holly Day: Handyman
Handyman
©2002 Holly Day
I hit him over the head with his own hammer, pulled it out of his back pocket, straight nails spilling out noisy on the concrete floor. I hit him so hard the round edge sunk an inch into his skull the sound of a hard-cooked egg being smashed with a fist.
I hit him square in the back of the head, I swung the hammer like Thor in the flames sparks behind my eyelids like the flash before thunder. He half-turned to face me, reached up with one hand, tried to pull the hammer free as he fell to the ground.
I hit him so hard he stumbled forward, reflexively breaking with an open palm an instant before sliding on towards the floor. His eyes fixed on a point far ahead of us, something I had obviously missed, a mar on the white baked tile.
Of the Highway
©2002 Holly Day
I’m in love with the lonely ones, those that peek shy from beneath too much hair and makeup, costume themselves angry and violent while shrinking away wrapped in thoughts of consequence and self-loathing
I’m in love with the damaged ones, those that scream still from injustices in infancy feel fingers on their flesh while all alone drown agony in vice to shut out the noise. I’m in love with the frightened ones, call them
to my body to replace absent mothers, sadistic fathers, take dreams inside me grown too old to bear. I’m in love with the monster-challenging shadows, the black-clad children
burning themselves to an early death resisting adolescence, pain. Come, resolute angels, let me heal your broken wings.
Hospital
©2002 Holly Day
Death moves among the bodies smiling gently at future friends— all men are her lovers in the end.
She closes eyes still wet with tears compassion turns her pale cheeks pink like roses blooming in an albino garden.
And with her tiny instrument she draws the pain from cancer knots a hollow bone, her musical straw- a piper’s tune of freedom.
Loneliness rises, takes her hand and follows her forever.