Adam Day


REHABILITATION 

My aunt shaves
in her underwear

while she talks
to her hair – like

plant sentience:
“If you leave

someone, you’ve
got to do it 

for a real
piece of ass.”

The whole thing
is ridiculous:

it’s like being
inside a bird;

where do you
live when

you’re sick?



REDOUBT

Night mountain 
snow is unlike 
them living 
inside his head:

There is one less 
table setting. 
He had nothing 

to fear, though 
he went in fear – 
there was nothing 

they could do 
to him, or 
very little.



MONKEY MIND

Shotgun my brain 
and tendons into words 

onto the wall. The trigger-digit 
sings though 

it doesn’t feel 
its best. It should be 

ashamed; people will 
be mad – them do moral

history. But screw Jack 
and sister and Santa 

and sir! This island feels
less and more about less. But 

if I escape to Montana, 
Slovenia? All did or are doing:

thrive, nervous hurts – then
the appointment – forty years long

enough in a taxi 
going home? One day 

I will rope with my own 
hands or dive into schist –

forget footnotes 
and news and truth. Take 

a word for it. My mind
is fine. The jerk. 



TO REMAIN

Swift tired, soft 
they leave their eyes 

on the sun, 
leaves whitening 

before rain
in the acacia cold. 

Clouds hang
like wood 

in barbed wire. 
The easy sky 

gets laid, flashing 
the sea heavy 

on the hill.

Adam Day is the author of Left-Handed Wolf (LSU Press, 2020), and of Model of a City in Civil War (Sarabande Books), and the recipient of a Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship for Badger, Apocrypha, and of a PEN Award. He is the editor of the forthcoming anthology, Divine Orphans of the Poetic Project, from 1913 Press. His work has appeared in the APR, Boston Review, Denver Quarterly, Volt, Kenyon Review, Iowa Review, and elsewhere.

 
 

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