The Squirrel

I thought the squirrel had died inside the tree so I poked at it
with a stick. It didn’t move, so I poked inside the hollow
I thought it was trapped in, poked it again. Something grabbed my stick
tugged it with teeth and tiny hands, and so I pulled
the stick back out. Weeks later

three tiny tails snaked out of the hole next to the first squirrel’s
twisted and wrapped around their mother’s tail as though
they had to cling to her even out here. I never saw
their little faces, never saw anything but the tails
growing thicker and redder and fluffier with each day.
The mother would only come out at night
to gather food for them, I never saw her leave her post.
I spread crackers with peanut butter for her in the kitchen
carefully placing them just below her nest as an offering
a plea for forgiveness.

One morning, all four tails were gone. The hollow
gaped at me, abandoned, from my old birch tree.
I put more crackers in the garden, put them in the branches
near the hollow, chased stray cats from my yard and
kept the dog inside, but I never got to see those little squirrel children
never got to see who had made their first home in my yard.

The Mouse

My husband calls me into the kitchen to show me the mouse
that has fallen into the sink during the night. “I think it’s dead,” he says
just as it begins paddling half-heartedly in the water once more
one last, futile effort to find some purchase on the slick porcelain basin
one impossible final effort. Its eyes are dull, flat, black
minutes from the end. I reach down into the water,
pull the little creature up by its tail
take it outside. “Make sure it’s dead,” calls my husband from the house

not wanting to be a part of whatever I have planned. The mouse
struggles feebly in my hand. Its eyes don’t see me. I have never
seen eyes like that before, half goggled, oblivious
like two dull nail heads jammed into its face.
I carefully set it down in the garden, place its feet on the dirt
let go of its tail. “Please don’t come back,” I whisper
as it struggles for life, for balance
before springing off into the undergrowth.

“Please don’t come back.”

The Myth of Correspondence

To fully understand the pictures I have sent you
first, fill a bathtub with water and ice
get into the tub with all of your clothes on.
Only then should you shake these photographs out
of this careful assemblage of paper.

This is the only way you’ll be able to understand
the shades of weather that separate us, the only way
to separate yourself from your envelope
of tropical breezes and permanent sunshine.
I will speak to you through the ice bruising your skin
a frigid wraith clinging to you from too far away.

Tuesday

On a perfect day, I would be able to open my back door
find nothing but jungle waiting for me, sunshine filtered in through the leaves
of trees I’d never seen before, the calls of unfamiliar birds coming at me from all angles.
On a perfect day, I would hear snakes in the undergrowth,
monsters rustling just out of sight
hear the low rumble of a tiger or a jaguar breathing a warning shot
close by, perhaps as close as the cooling shade beneath my back porch.

But this is not a perfect day, and I have not been transported
to a random scene from a Kipling novel, have not been transported back in time
to march with Herodotus or Alexander through lush jungles untouched by civil war
am not looking for new species of birds with Audubon
or stumbling into and through the ruins of Machu Picchu with Bingham.
I am just digging holes in my own back yard for tulips and daffodils
wishing I could be anyone but me.

Mouse Trap

The little mice watch me from their prison of tin and plexiglass
inside the live mouse trap I baited the night before. Four little mice
with pointed noses and trembling whiskers
eyes black and bulging against their dark brown fur.
I wonder how I must appear to them, this giant thing
that they spend their days avoiding, rushing from one dark corner
to another at the sound of my footsteps, and now
there’s nowhere left to go, they wandered into this baited box
and now I have them in my curious grasp.

I tap on the little plexiglass window and they
rush to the corners of the box,
cram themselves into the entrance chute, their thin black tails
twitching and curling, hanging out in the open. I imagine
what it would be like to keep them as pets, these stinky little mice
what it would be like to train these wild mice to live in a cage
to eat only when food is offered, and only what I alone offer them
if eventually, they would learn to anticipate my arrival
at the door of their cage with joy, or if
they would always be just as terrified of me as this?

Holly Day’s writing has recently appeared in Analog SF, Talking River, and New Plains Review, and her published books include Music Theory for Dummies and Music Composition for Dummies. She currently teaches classes at The Loft Literary Center in Minnesota, Hugo House in Washington, and the Indiana Writers Center.

You can find more of Holly’s work here on Ink Pantry.