Evening by Holly Day

I press my nose to the window wonder
when you’re coming home. Each time
someone walks past the house I
think it’s you.

I busy myself with things I know
would make you happy if
you’d only come home. I make your blankets
smell like my skin so that
you’ll dream of me when you’re in bed.

The sun goes hot and high then sets.
I eat dinner alone, think of your key
clinking against the door
hear your footsteps in the hall
in my head

where will I go?

Holly Day has been a writing instructor at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis since 2000. Her poetry has recently appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Grain, and Harvard Review, and her newest poetry collections are Into the Cracks (Golden Antelope Press), Cross Referencing a Book of Summer (Silver Bow Publishing), The Tooth is the Largest Organ in the Human Body (Anaphora Literary Press), and Book of Beasts (Weasel Press).