By: Holly Day

She watches him as he pulls the bodies off the wall,
the broken bones and smiles
over chicken-wire poses, crackling
fireplaces threatening the fragile taxidermist people
those sightless eyes.

She imagines the frame that will stretch her own corpse
someday, when she, too, has been ruined for him
too many times to prod numbly back into place. She can already feel
the change in his touch as he caresses her in bed
more like Braille than love, there are

broken bones here, too, and too much pretending
that nothing’s wrong, she sighs.

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Holly Day has taught writing classes at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, since 2000. Her poetry has recently appeared in Tampa Review, SLAB, and Gargoyle, while her newest nonfiction book, Tattoos FAQ, is coming out from Backbeat Books at the end of 2017.