Upon the Discovery of the Existence of Another Golden Calf

By Holly Day

This is how God must have felt

looking down at His people dancing around the golden calf

when they thought His back was turned, surreptitiously kissing

fist-sized idols shoved deep in their pockets

when they thought He wasn’t looking

whispering heresy in one another’s ears

lies about other true gods that were nicer and better than Him

when they thought He couldn’t hear.

Myself, I am a maelstrom of anger and defeat

hands full of hotel receipts gathered from pockets

detailing lunch dates spent beneath cheap sheets

a second cell phone full of phone numbers I don’t recognize

matchbooks from nightclubs I’ve only seen advertised on TV.

I long to storm and gnash and wreak tidal vengeance

on all of these things that have separated him from me

blind him into submissions, into acceptance, but I

know that this is not the way to bring someone back to Love.

this hopelessness, this defeat, this slow burning of love letters

from a stranger somehow better than me.

Holly Day’s poetry has recently appeared in Plainsongs,The Long Islander, and The Nashwaak Review. Her newest poetry collections are A Perfect Day for Semaphore (Finishing Line Press),  In This Place, She Is Her Own (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press), A Wall to Protect Your Eyes (Pski’s Porch Publishing), I’m in a Place Where Reason Went Missing (Main Street Rag Publishing Co.), The Yellow Dot of a Daisy (Alien Buddha Press), Folios of Dried Flowers and Pressed Birds (Cyberwit.net), and Where We Went Wrong (Clare Songbirds Publishing).