On Paper ~ poetry by Holly Day

4, the tendons of the foot, sinew stretched taut
as rubber bands, cat gut. 4 is also
an exposed thigh bone, close to an (n), horizontal and lateral
lines on a map of a body flayed open for investigation.

4(e), a silent scream, or a smile, a sarcastic smirk, a laugh
aborted. Two teeth missing, knocked out in some
forgotten fight, buried beneath
a flap of cheek skin, practiced
disarming shyness.

4 (o), three circular vesicular ports
mark the place of the engine that drives all men
removed carefully with the top layer of skin
safely placed where it will do no (more) harm.

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 full-length 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).