It's just poetry, it won't bite

The Wooden Man


05.13.13 Posted in Uncategorized by

Holly Day’s most recent poem to appear here was Where It Comes From (March 2013).

The Wooden Man
By Holly Day

a man made of wood would be a much more practical being
than a man made of flesh, a man with knotted arms
coarse flesh, rough bark, rooted to the ground
unable to leave. I imagine the women
of those long ago forests carrying
new babies in their arms, determined to forget 
who the single sperm on that single night
came from, I see those women

holding their babies up to the best trees
the old, tall ones with birds in their crowns
squirrels in their crooks, rabbits under their roots
saying, “this is your father,” spinning elaborate
but believable tales of strong, beautiful, dependable dryads
visiting the sleeping children during the night, planting
dew-damp and sap-scented kisses on tow-framed foreheads
whispering the secrets of the forest in their tiny
sleeping ears, and how the tree outside your door

is the thing that makes this home.






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