I feel the wings flutter under my skin as I tell them
about my childhood, about how things were before
I had children of my own. I hint at the type of insect I was
make it more beautiful—I was a butterfly, a damselfly
a fluorescent leaf-hopper, something amazing.
Because they’re my children, I can tell they believe me
that right now, they’re imagining me as
a lime-green lunar moth, wings soft as down
not the chitinous beetle I really was
brown and dull and unimportant,
scuttling from one crack to the next.
Day’s poetry has recently appeared in Plainsongs, The Long Islander, and The Nashwaak Review. Her newest poetry collections are In This Place, She Is Her Own (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press), A Wall to Protect Your Eyes (Pski’s Porch Publishing), Folios of Dried Flowers and Pressed Birds (Cyberwit.net), Where We Went Wrong (Clare Songbirds Publishing), Into the Cracks (Golden Antelope Press), and Cross Referencing a Book of Summer (Silver Bow Publishing).