{"id":54052,"date":"2020-06-06T10:26:48","date_gmt":"2020-06-06T16:26:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=54052"},"modified":"2020-06-07T08:26:13","modified_gmt":"2020-06-07T14:26:13","slug":"four-poems-by-poet-meg-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/four-poems-by-poet-meg-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Four poems by poet Meg Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Welcome to this month’s edition of READ LOCAL First:\u00a0Utah\u2019s\u00a0most comprehensive collection of accomplished poets and authors. \u00a0This month we introduce you to deaf,\u00a0genderqueer poet Meg Day. Day is the author of\u00a0Last Psalm at Sea Level<\/i>\u00a0(Barrow Street, 2014), winner of the Publishing Triangle\u2019s Audre Lorde Award, and a finalist for the 2016 Kate Tufts Discovery Award. She is co-editor of\u00a0Laura Hershey: On the Life & Work of an American Master<\/i>\u00a0(Pleiades, 2019).<\/p>\n

The 2015-2016 recipient of the Amy Lowell Poetry Traveling Scholarship and\u00a0a 2013 recipient of an NEA Fellowship in Poetry,\u00a0Day\u2019s work is forthcoming in\u00a0Best American Poetry 2020 (available September 8). <\/i>She lived in Salt Lake City and taught at the University of Utah as a graduate student from 2011-2015.<\/p>\n

Today we bring you four previously published poems: Big Sky Domestic (The South Carolina Review),\u00a0<\/em>Aubade to Day (The Paris-American),\u00a0Tell the Bees I\u2019m Home (The Indiana Review), and\u00a0Deaf Erasure of the Gospel According to the TSA Agent at Atlanta International\u00a0(The New York Times).\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Nowadays, Day\u00a0is Assistant Professor of English & Creative Writing at Franklin & Marshall College.\u00a0www.megday.com<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Big Sky Domestic<\/strong><\/p>\n

The neighbors are watching teevee again<\/p>\n

& the pale blue of Montana morning<\/p>\n

licks the long wall of the bedroom<\/p>\n

silently, each block of gauzy cerulean<\/p>\n

a panel in a widescreen comic that will last<\/p>\n

until dawn bleaches it bare. Even<\/p>\n

as I linger on the lip of sleep in this porch<\/p>\n

rocker, in this quilted haven\u2014the headboard<\/p>\n

pardoned of splinters, the clouds growing<\/p>\n

squally above the bureau\u2014something new<\/p>\n

& tender has stitched itself satisfied<\/p>\n

inside of you. Your belly swells in time<\/p>\n

with the pendulum of the longcase<\/p>\n

my father made himself & my mother<\/p>\n

must have known this eery glow<\/p>\n

of stucco sky when she sewed<\/p>\n

the pinwheels that tilt when we exhale<\/p>\n

in unison. I have not known worry<\/p>\n

since the last time Montana ether appeared<\/p>\n

in panorama through the window<\/p>\n

& I woke remembering our children<\/p>\n

might someday soon grow beyond themselves<\/p>\n

& into men: her body into his, or her body<\/p>\n

into his arms, a concordance that more<\/p>\n

than once has been mistaken for else:<\/p>\n

a mountain silhouetted in the distance<\/p>\n

or merely the wallpapered shadow<\/p>\n

of a secret self who has yet to find<\/p>\n

their way from the mercy of the womb.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(This poem was originally published in The South Carolina Review.)<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Aubade to Day<\/strong><\/p>\n

Last night I dreamt I\u2019d forgotten my name<\/p>\n

or driven it off like a fox through the split-rail<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

& into the long grass that can\u2019t help but divulge<\/p>\n

the direction of the wind. More than once,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been without\u2014& more than once I\u2019ve run<\/p>\n

my padded bones along the braided bottom teeth<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

of summer, confusing heat with light & feeling<\/p>\n

for the peak that christens predators with sharper<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

tongues than prey. There are some shades of night<\/p>\n

so tender they swallow sound without chewing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Pretend this is the first time you\u2019ve seen me<\/p>\n

crouch & tuck my hands under the resting scaffold<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

of a body limp with sleep, or worse. Pretend<\/p>\n

your teeth don\u2019t pull flesh from the peach\u2019s pit<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

the way maggots eat around the tendons that hold<\/p>\n

the heart inside the chest of the fawn felled by a fox<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

in the soundless down of that black yard. Where<\/p>\n

is the sun! Look at the long grass open like a wound<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

where this small life left an even gentler night. Can<\/p>\n

you see its blood across the door of my chest<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

like a promise? Can you hear me screaming my last<\/p>\n

name into its neck as if it would turn the earth?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(This poem was originally published in The Paris-American.)<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tell the Bees I\u2019m Home<\/strong><\/p>\n

The telling of the bees, a traditional English custom, requires the head of household to inform her colony of each family death by knocking on the hive or risk losing the bees & their honey. <\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Elsewhere, there\u2019s a party<\/p>\n

of familiars waiting to welcome my grandmother back<\/p>\n

from the aperture of aspiration & she is the only one<\/p>\n

at the nursing home who sees them; here<\/p>\n

in the front yard\u2014<\/p>\n

where my grandmother sunbathes in a nylon chair still soaked<\/p>\n

with baby oil & hums oldies with tin foil on her knees & tells me<\/p>\n

to lay my small face against the stubble<\/p>\n

of the crabgrass<\/p>\n

so I will know how kissing a grown man can hurt\u2014I have<\/p>\n

similar vision. None of this exists: the bright sex of trash<\/p>\n

we heaped sweet & ripe on curbs;<\/p>\n

the Ponderosa still pitching<\/p>\n

sap into my waist-length curls; the brown wool sectional moved<\/p>\n

the width of the duplex to hide shoe polish in the carpet. We are<\/p>\n

a narrowing pupil, a black hole,<\/p>\n

some collapse deep in the hive<\/p>\n

whose queen went missing long before anyone noticed<\/p>\n

the milk in the oven or my grandmother\u2019s eyes dowsing faces<\/p>\n

for names. After they moved her,<\/p>\n

we pulled the wallpaper<\/p>\n

from the back room &, like her memory, under each layer<\/p>\n

some stranger\u2019s sensibilities hid intact. I, too, have been gone<\/p>\n

so many years I have no truer reality<\/p>\n

to offer; I am stung only<\/p>\n

by the illusion my absence must have made me. It has been night<\/p>\n

in the city of my grandmother\u2019s brain for so long we are all<\/p>\n

sundowning at every break of another day<\/p>\n

worth remembering\u2014<\/p>\n

& who would not offer up their name to keep swallowing<\/p>\n

unforgettable? Tell the bees I\u2019ve come: to memorize the kitchen<\/p>\n

edged with white geese in bonnets<\/p>\n

& the face whose DNA<\/p>\n

might someday make me forget my own. Tell the bees I\u2019m home\u2014<\/p>\n

so they\u2019re certain nothing has changed\u2014& she is still gone, but<\/p>\n

in my coming, gone further, gone fast.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(This poem was originally published in The Indiana Review.)<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Deaf Erasure of the Gospel According to the TSA Agent at Atlanta International<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This is the good news: [inaudible]<\/p>\n

& we have a plan for you. Can you follow<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

what I\u2019m saying? Follow me. Bless you,<\/p>\n

[inaudible], there\u2019s no need to [inaudible].<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Doesn\u2019t this happen to you all the time?<\/p>\n

[Inaudible]. I said step in here. Why would you\u2014<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

copy. Copy that, I\u2019m here with\u2014yes I\u2019m here<\/p>\n

with [inaudible] now. Like I was saying before,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019m not here to preach [inaudible]. You are<\/p>\n

what you are. Even Jesus wasn\u2019t believed<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

& it\u2019s not like he could put some marker<\/p>\n

on his drivers license. Have you had the [inaudible]?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My cousin had the [inaudible]. But the other<\/p>\n

way. Spread your [inaudible]. A little farther<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

down the line & I would\u2019ve been Paul<\/p>\n

or [inaudible] back from his lunch break.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That\u2019s the power of [inaudible] right there.<\/p>\n

Somebody\u2019s looking out for you today. Next time<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

you might not\u2014[inaudible]. Copy. Copy<\/p>\n

that. I\u2019m going to place my fingers here & then<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

they need the room. [Inaudible]. Okay that\u2019s<\/p>\n

enough. I need to go & tell them what I\u2019ve seen.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(This poem was originally published in The New York Times.)<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to this month’s edition of READ LOCAL First:\u00a0Utah\u2019s\u00a0most comprehensive collection of accomplished poets and authors. \u00a0This month we introduce you to deaf,\u00a0genderqueer poet Meg Day. Day is the author of\u00a0Last Psalm at Sea Level\u00a0(Barrow Street, 2014), winner of the Publishing Triangle\u2019s Audre Lorde Award, and a finalist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1566,"featured_media":54056,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,2513],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-literary-arts","category-read-local-first"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/MDay_KRehder2019.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-08 19:01:26","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1566"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54052"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54068,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54052\/revisions\/54068"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}