THE KIT
ALM No.91, July 2026
POETRY
The Kit
My grandfather’s WWII sewing kit
is full of little pieces of fabric that all say “Day” on them
and I can’t remember ever seeing him sew a button on anything
or thread a needle or patch up a shirt. I can’t imagine him
as an 18-year-old preparing to ship out
fumbling with needle and thread, these little name tags
he was supposed to sew to his shirts, his pants
perhaps even his socks
in case the rest of his body was unrecognizable
laid out to decay on some foreign field.
The Nazi’s House
We drove past the Nazi’s house on the way to the bar,
curious as to what a convicted and captured Nazi’s house would look like.
It was a nondescript white two-story in a nondescript neighborhood
nothing particularly monstrous about the house, the yard was nice
there were tulips coming up in bright fistfuls in the tidy garden out front.
The sidewalk was packed with people nonchalantly wandering past the house
also curious of what sort of place a Nazi could have hidden
for over 50 years.
Years before, I had been friends with a man who had spent his 30s hunting Nazis
had gone into South America, Argentina, looking for Nazis
but he was looking for big-name Nazis, like Mengele, Eichmann,
followed rumors of Hitler escaping into the jungle. My friend’s dead now
but if he were still alive, I’d ask him
what he thought about this Nazi living less than three miles away from us
why he hadn’t been the one to catch him, turn him in
or if he’d known our neighbor was a killer all along.
In the Garden
When orb-weaver spiders stretch their webs across a space
they sometimes make a thick jagged zig-zag down the exact center
close to where they huddle and wait for prey. They only spin this pattern
if there are lots of birds nearby that might crash into their web
and the more birds there are, the thicker they draw this line.
I’ve noticed that orb-weavers in my garden also make this line
even though there aren’t any birds in that part of the yard
yet they draw their zig-zag with thick, forceful lines
as though the crows and jaybirds and catbirds congregate specifically
in the corner by my tomatoes.
I suspect they make these designs just for me
either as a plea for me to appreciate their handiwork and leave them alone
or because they know I am the clumsiest beast of all in the yard
and therefore need the additional visual aids
to keep from destroying everything.
To My Daughter
If you hide behind a tree long enough
you will disappear into its bark
be pulled in by numerous branching twigs and fronds
become part of the tree. When I tell you to come in at night
this is why, because I don’t want to you be eaten by a tree
and I see your feet poking out from behind that one so I know
that’s where you are.
Nobody ever taught me how to be a mother
I didn’t really have a mother myself, just a woman
who collected mushrooms and dead birds when we went on hikes
left her pockets so full of detritus that if you were to borrow one of her sweaters
your hands would be covered in maggots and feathers and dirt.
She couldn’t cook and bought more books than food.
Everything I learned about parenting came from her
and from watching the cats that lived under our house.
If you get up early enough, I’ll pack us a lunch
and we’ll go out to the park, watch the ducks sleeping on the lake.
I can tell you everything you’d ever want to know
about squirrels and waterfowl, spiders and planetary orbits
but don’t ask me how to fix your hair for school
or imagine I’ll ever get the laundry done on time
or that just because I made breakfast today, I’ll remember to do it tomorrow.
These just aren’t the sort of things I think about.
Open Water
The great bird struggles out over the open water, everyone on the ship
is wondering if we’re about to watch an albatross die, will it be
a sudden faltering of the wings, a weird little twist in the air
will it suddenly just dive into the water and disappears beneath the depths
as if chasing a fish but never reemerge? Or will it
flutter gracefully and slowly to the surface of the ocean
still and quiet this far out from shore
spread its wings and stretch its neck out as it drops
to rest on the flat water as though it’s just fallen asleep?
And we, the observers from the deck of this ship
what will become of us, so far out here, witnessing this death--
will we take it as an omen of our own demise, like seafarers did before
lash ourselves to bolted-down lounge chairs and tea tables
sleep out under the stars instead of in our cabins, just in case we need to flee?
Or will we say silent prayers willing the bird to rise up again from the water
shoot up through the clean, green sea, a silver fish flopping in its jaws
a new lease on life?
Holly Day’s writing has recently appeared in The NoSleep podcast, 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.
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