Five Poems by Holly Day

 

Flight

 

In 1868, and in front of an audience, notable psychic Daniel Douglas Home went into a trance and floated out of the third floor window of his house, eventually drifting into the empty field next door. No signs of fraud were ever found.

 

In 1976, I climbed on top of the picnic shelter at the park, opened an umbrella, and jumped. I had spent hours beforehand lecturing to my friends how the wind would lift me up off the roof, how I would float gently to the ground on the other side of the park. I, too, had an audience, and one girl said she saw me float a little bit right before I slammed into the ground.

 

In 1993, in the middle of the night, my sister drove her truck off the road and buried it nose-first in a culvert. Nobody was there to see it happen, but her dog was thrown out the open window, landed far enough away from the wreckage to count as flight.

First Couple

 

John Quincy Adams kept a pet alligator in one of the White House bathrooms,

reportedly there to terrify guests and staff.

The alligator did not have a name, and was just referred to as "The Alligator."

His wife, Louisa, kept a cluster of silkworms as pets inside the White House

and busied herself by harvesting their cocoons

and weaving the threads into handkerchiefs for guests.

No one knows if she named her silkworms or not, but she probably didn’t,

since they were all destined for death at her hands anyway.

 

Louisa wasn’t very good at weaving, but since she was the First Lady of the United States,

visiting dignitaries would accept her lumpy handkerchiefs

the way you would accept a hand-made Valentine from a small child that wasn’t your own,

covered with sticky bits, poor spelling, and good intentions.

Sometimes, she would forget to remove the last of the insect detritus from her creations,

which would consequently rot and grow into holes and disintegrate the thin silk.

 

One can only imagine how lonely she must have been,

with only her silkworms to keep her company, her husband

too busy wrestling with The Alligator and administering to affairs of state

to spend any quality time with her. Poor, beautiful Louisa,

patiently dropping one silkworm cocoon at a time into a cup of boiling tea,

watching the threads unravel like a cloud around the remains

of one former companion after another,

her determined denial of the moths

that should be been allowed to flutter off into the night. 

 

Branta leucopsis (the Barnacle Goose)

 

It was once believed that Barnacle Geese hatched

from the barnacles growing on rotting timbers,

and that because they weren't born like regular birds,

it was okay to eat them during Lent

and other periods of fasting.

They supposedly tasted fantastic to medieval Europeans,

full of lovely grease and fat, which leads one to believe

that any great number of theories might have been concocted

just so that people could keep eating them,

even during religious holidays.

 

In his book, Herball (published in 1597), noted ornithologist John Gerard

claimed that the trees growing close to the shore along the Irish coast

were covered in large, red barnacles, that, when opened,

contained bird-like creatures, disputing the claim made nearly fifty years before

by another ornithologist, William Turner,

that it was actually the fungi growing on the rotting timbers

that turned into these birds, and not the barnacles.

An Irishman he'd encountered, named Octavian,

was said to have handled the half-formed birds,

mashing them in his great, brown, fisherman hands

as they floundered between fungal and avian form.

 

The Audubon Society describes the barnacle goose

as “an attractive small goose,” has a recording of the bird’s call

on its web site, you can hear it for yourself.

There is no mention of its fungal origins

or even a nod to its possible gestation

inside the beak of a knobby barnacle

of the type found clustered tight

on the surface of rotten logs and faded beer cans

washed up on the Irish coast.

 

Midnight

 

He calls me in the middle of the night and wants to talk about serious things,

asks when I’m going to leave my husband, asks if that’s still the plan

says he has space for me in his house, this place I’ve never visited

halfway across the country. He says there’s plenty of room for me

I just have to come.

 

It would be so much easier to have this conversation if, instead of a person,

this voice was coming from a tiny man inside my phone receiver

perhaps sitting at a desk in a teeny-tiny chair, his hands cupped around his mouth

as he shouts these things into my gigantic ear.

 

Charade

 

We all participate in making the house look lived-in, not abandoned:

my husband keeps the snow up the walk shoveled in the winter

I check on the mail and have a special box for any letters and packages

another neighbor comes by to mow the lawn in the spring and summer.

Only a few of us know the house has been empty for years

not officially abandoned, but no one has lived there since my neighbor

went to the nursing home after her last bad fall.

 

We take turns wandering around her back yard, keeping up with the weeds

putting in new plants and hanging baskets of flowers

from the hook by the back door. Lights are turned on and off, pest control is called

her sister comes by to vacuum the living room and keep the counters free of dust.

Some days, the house has as many visitors

as it did when someone actually lived there.

There are nights when I am stretched out on the couch

when I swear I can hear someone trying to get into her house,

checking her windows, walking into the back yard.

On those nights, I put the leash on the dog and take her out

walk around to the side of the house to check for footprints

anything that shouldn’t be there.

I never see anything, but an empty house

is a hard secret to keep.

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.

 

What He Learned - Short Story By Lev Bitterman

 

What He Learned

Short Story

By Lev Bitterman

                                                                              

                                                                 

   Violet Findlay recalled, twenty years later, that strange episode in her life that began at the theater in 1878. Every weekend, Violet and her cousin, both aged 17, travelled from their native province of Braintree to see a play in Boston. Violet remembered leaning out of her seat that evening to pour gossip into the ear of her cousin. Alice was both Violet’s closest confidante and a constant source of annoyance as they often competed for the affections of the same beau- and really, how could someone as shameless as Alice honestly believe that the handsome and pious Hyacinth McConnell held her in affection. 

   Alice’s face flushed with delight at the tantalizing morsel of information that Violet had offered her, for there never was any real scandal in their circles.

  “It is known throughout Paris,” Violet continued (how her friend had any idea of what was known in Paris confounded Alice, for Violet had never set foot in that city), “that Claudette Parys, that notorious- I will explain- Frenchwoman who has arrived in Braintree, was, in her day, the most ruthless flirt, and worse, and has- and I tell you this in good confidence- stolen the heart of many men even as the last emperor of France.” 

   Alice burst into giggles, revealing her horse-like teeth, which Violet noted with satisfaction.  Alice composed herself and then, filled with sudden wisdom, sighed. “Ah, Paris, filled with beauty, but infested with sin. How often the latter accompanies the former!”

   Violet suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. When had Alice become a saint? Why, just last week, she had rouged her cheeks so excessively that she looked like a stunted picture of Shakespeare’s “painted maypole.” Of all people! Regardless, the sentiment that Alice feigned was correct, and Violet was not one to disagree with it! She nodded solemnly. “Yes, that is all too true,” she responded, sighing and shaking her head, “But I have even more delicious news!”

  “Oh, do tell!” Alice whispered, leaning so close to Violet that their heads almost touched.

  “Well, she is accompanied by a man.”

  “A man! What sort of man?”

  “Purportedly, a handsome one! And he must be learned- and brave. You see, he has traveled all around the globe: China, India, Japan! I also hear that he has amassed a collection of the most fascinating and exotic specimens.”

  “Heard from whom?” The whole town knew that Violet had a propensity for exaggeration. Alice referred to this penchant of Violet’s with no other term in private conversation, for she was far too much of a lady to do otherwise; she had been told by Annie Parish (who had stayed in New York for a month, and thus knew very well what was sophisticated and what was not) that only the provincial name things for what they are.  Unlike Violet, Alice possessed at least some scruples!

   “Really, Alice, don’t look at me so!”

    Alice was about to respond, but she was interrupted by the rising curtain. Both had gone to see (or in Alice’s case, been dragged to the theater by Violet to see) for the third time that week, Lady Audley’s Secret, a drama that was not appropriate for girls of 17, and one that their mothers surely disapproved of.

    As Alice and Violet watched the unsuspecting Lord Audley revel in the joys of married life, in the province of Braintree, Marion McConnell, a woman of fifty who always dressed for twenty, sighed, for her son was coming to visit, as he did every weekend. Hyacinth was a terrible disappointment, which meant that he was a terrible bore. Couldn’t he find any diversions besides tennis, prayer, and horseback riding? What had she named him Hyacinth for? Her wish had been to give birth to a great beau monde, of the kind that she found in her French novels, and whom she suspected were popped out in Paris every day. But what she had given life to was a boy who was an archetypical American of the modern era, and frankly, a bit of a Puritan.

  Marion glanced at the extremely generous portrait of her late- and even in this incredibly flattering form- corpulent husband, hanging on the wall of the French parlor room she had supplied herself with, using part of his remaining wealth. Hyacinth had, at least, inherited a beautiful Roman nose from his mother, and fortunately, none of the physical aspects of his portly, red-headed father- and he was handsome, though not the sort of man that appealed to her sensibilities.      

   The door opened, and there stood Hyacinth. “Come in, come in,” Marion called, ushering Hyacinth into the room. “Oh, Hyacinth,” Marion continued, as Hyacinth settled onto the chair opposite her, “we never see each other anymore. Ah, I know I look ill, but I am just having another one of my nervous spells; you know how fragile my heart is. Moira has gone out to fetch some more smelling salts that shall, God willing, revive my spirits.”

  Sometimes Hyacinth wondered if his mother was just a tad affected. “Well, Mother, I do hope that you recover soon. You always do.” 

   “Oh, Hyacinth!” Marion sighed, draping her arm across her forehead, a la the fatally dehydrated Manon Lescaut. She racked her brain for a topic of conversation, but there was nothing particularly new or interesting that concerned her as of late, and besides, even if there had been, it would not have been something she would relate to a boy, for men of 19 (at least, in America) really were still boys. 

   Those two girls, Violet and Alice, would likely appear in an hour or two. Of the two, Marion preferred Violet, but Hyacinth’s feelings towards both of the girls seemed to be entirely platonic, if not indifferent. But he was still a boy after all, Marion reflected, who had not yet discovered the thrill of love.   

  Suddenly, Marion heard a knock; it must have been Eileen, Moira’s daughter, who was also employed at the house, (as a courtesy, for who in God’s name would marry that girl) often did yardwork, and had a tendency to lose her key.  “Hyacinth, darling, would you please open the door?”

  Hyacinth’s mother was correct: there, on her doorstep, stood Eileen, who, in her sullen, half-child way, told Marion, “A card for you, Miss.”

 “Ah, I wonder who has called upon me!” Marion remarked. “Let’s see here…Claudette and Georges Parys-” Marion gasped with delight. This couple was surely new, for Marion knew everyone in town -but that was of no importance; clearly, judging from her name, Claudette belonged to the most sophisticated of nationalities, and the surname Parys implied that the pair, or at least the husband, hailed from that great city of romance and intrigue: Paris! Marion continued, reading off the card, “We are your new neighbors, and as such, humbly ask you and your son to join us for an afternoon coffee, whenever you may be available!”

  Hyacinth had heard what the French were like, but if this couple was settling in Braintree, as opposed to Washington or New York, they were in all likelihood not loose aristocrats. He provided the expected response to his mother’s dramatic reading of the card by asking if she had known about the couple before.

  “No,” Marion began, “and I know everyone! I should think I had seen their things being loaded inside- but our bucolic municipality, although…pleasant, is so placid, so unchanging, that one never thinks to look for anything new! Oh, we must respond to their invitation at once!”                                                             

  “So, yes, our lunch together really was exquisite-” Marion told her visitors the next day, adding, “and the Paryses were so taken with Hyacinth’s learning. Georges has offered to tutor Hyacinth in the classics! Of course, he consented!” 

 “Oh, how splendid!” cried Delia Ward.

  “I should ask them to teach my Samuel as well,” Hortense Henon added, “for he does have a very great intellect.”

“Oh yes, and my Charles!”

“And my Andrew!”

 “And my Matthew!”

 But the proposals of Marion’s friends, when offered to the Paryses, were gently refused. 

//                                        

   Violet and Alice had not seen Hyacinth as of late; for the past four weekends he was always with the Paryses, even on Sundays- though, of course, he still went to church. 

    “I wish he would come to see us sometime,”  Alice whined one day, “it’s too bad of him, especially after all the time we took to visit him every weekend.”

    “I want desperately to join those lessons,” Violet said, staring at the Paryses’ house, longing to take part in what was happening inside. 

    Suddenly, the pair spotted Hyacinth coming up the path. 

  “Hyacinth!”  Alice squealed, rushing towards him.

  “Hyacinth, darling, where have you been?” Violet purred in his ear. “You must tell us everything, I beg of you!”

  “Ah- hello. I have been terribly occupied lately, you know. I have to be going-goodbye!” Hyacinth darted off towards the Parys house.

   Both girls stared after him.

   “Latin is impossibly dull. What in that house could capture him so?” Alice wondered out loud, frowning.

     “I have always found Latin an incredibly fascinating language,” Alice said the following Saturday. “Hyacinth and I have so much in common, it really is strange!”

 “That’s funny, just last week you thought Latin was ‘impossibly dull.’” Violet replied, a thin smile upon her face. Alice sniffed. 

   Violet entertained herself by gazing at the books Mrs. McConnell displayed in her parlor. What could be keeping her so long?

   Moira appeared in the doorway.  “Mrs. McConnell is ready for ye.” 

 “Alice, Violet. How delightful it is to see you both!” Marion greeted her two visitors, descending the stairs. “How have you been?”

 “Very well, thank you.” 

  “I see you have The Lady of Lyons,” observed Violet. “I just read it last month; I’d love to see it on stage- especially the scene in which Claude defends Pauline from Beauseant! Isn’t Mr. Lytton a genius?”

  “Violet, I have never known a girl your age with such sophisticated taste!”

   Violet and Marion continued to discuss The Lady of Lyons, until Alice blurted out: “Will Hyacinth be joining us today?”

  Both girls listened intently for Marion’s answer.

  “No, I’m afraid that he is with the Paryses. Ah, those lessons have done wonders for him; Georges has turned Hyacinth from a boy to a man of great learning.” Marion did not know exactly what Hyacinth was actually studying- the ways of the Ancient Greeks and Romans, most likely- but assumed that this was the case.

   Just then, the door opened, and Hyacinth entered, clearly in a hurry.

   “Ah! Hello Violet, Alice. How are you two lately? I’m terribly sorry, mother, if I interrupted anything- but I must retrieve something from the house!” Hyacinth grinned at them, and then quickly sped off.

   Violet and Alice exchanged puzzled glances; they had never seen Hyacinth so full of life.                                                     

   

//

  “You know, I believe I saw Hyacinth today,” Violet said, lowering her voice and glancing around the tea house.

 “But it’s a Wednesday!” Alice squeaked. “Surely he wouldn’t miss his college classes! Does Mrs. McConnell know that he hasn’t gone back?”

  “No, I’m sure she assumed that he was taking the nine o’clock train.”

   “So, where did you see him?”

   “In the window of the Parys house, of course, speaking to Georges.”

   “He must be studying very intensely.” Alice mused.

    “Yes, I suppose so!” Nevertheless, Violet did find this strange.

   Several months later, the Paryses decided to move away. This was terribly sad for Marion, who went personally to give them a farewell gift. 

   Marion knocked on the door, and found that it was open. “Hello?” She called. 

   Marion then heard a groan, and out of concern, slowly entered the house. The sound seemed to be coming from the drawing room. As Marion slowly crept towards the source of the noise, she saw Claudette, slouched on the ground, an empty bottle next to her.

   Claudette, the scent of gin on her breath, muttered something in French before raising her head. “You idiot American women, always thinking that the French are sophisticated merely because of our nationality…No one of any sense would trust Georges and me. Though I suppose I seem harmless, a sexless nanny- not like those nasty Frenchwomen you see in English sensation novels. Doing all this for Georges has aged me. My love for him has turned me into a procuress. I always trick women like you; I always supply the boys for him, and then he tires of them or gets caught and we have to move on to the next town... Oh God, I love him so. I want to stop, but he’ll leave if I give up my role as his personal Madame! Ah, you gullible Americans…

  Marion, heart pounding, fled the house, and never mentioned the incident to anyone.

  Shortly thereafter, Violet’s mother found a suitable beau for her daughter, who was wealthy enough to support her, and was quite taken by her. The pair moved to Philadelphia, and Violet’s mother soon followed suit.

  Twenty years later- about 1898, in the beautiful town of Trieste, which lay in the splendid country of Italy, Violet Beaumont (neé Findlay), who had decided to join her husband when he was called to Italy on business, stood admiring a statue she presumed to represent Neptune, when she turned and saw-could it really be?

  “Excuse me, might you be Hyacinth McConnell?” Violet gasped.

   He had gotten thinner, older- but it was most assuredly him.

  "Yes- Violet Findlay?”

   “Why, yes! Well, I’m Violet Beaumont, now!” Violet laughed, displaying her wedding ring.

     Violet froze. Her eyes wandered to the rugged, robust, sneering young man accompanying Hyacinth. She hadn’t noticed him initially. What a strange pair they made! Might he be a thief, haunting Hyacinth until he had the chance to rob him? In that case, she should give out a warning. Violet hung fire. Oh, how would one handle this sort of situation? But in the midst of her hesitation, Violet saw Hyacinth give the man a swift look of reproval as he neared. There was something in it that suggested a sort of intimate familiarity; it was certainly not the sort of look that one would give a violent bandit- for instance, Violet could recall flashing it at her daughter when she was being impertinent in the company of other people, or when taking her husband aside after he forgot to shake Mr. Wangel’s hand at dinner.

  Memories of her youth, long untouched, were at once dusted off. It all made sense: why Hyacinth had never been interested in her or Alice, why he had stayed in town longer than expected, why Marion had acted so strangely in the days following the Paryses’ departure! 

 “I’m-er- teaching him Greek,” Hyacinth said, after a pause.

 “Yes, well, it was very nice seeing you again- goodbye!”

   Violet supposed that after all, those sessions with Georges had been fruitful: in one way or another, Hyacinth was now well versed in the ways of the Ancient Greeks.

Lev Bitterman is an aspiring writer and scholar from the U.S. His work has been published in the Lothlorien Poetry Journal and "Ink" Literary Review.