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).