Dalton Day 

Stepping Out of Sorrow 

I’m a girl with a wolf’s heart. 
I’m stepping out of sorrow. 
The house collapses. 
Either an insect or my mother or 
the still-sweet ghosts of lilies 
come to collect me. 
My head carries the sound of 
tap-dancing through puddles. One 
slow stab of wonder until I get 
to sleep again. They let me 
go in the woods. I think the trees 
are firework taxidermy. A steady 
reminder of celebration and 
light. How quiet. I’m a collaps- 
ing house. Come collect me. 
I’m stepping out of sorrow. 
Everything else is left howling. 

Brontide  

Please, don’t laugh at me I say 
to them. They are huge white animals 
and they are tiny. Tiny as 
fingernails. Huge as all my memories 
concerning water. Actually, I’m at the 
grocery store. I’m buying eggs and I’m cold. 
Do you remember the myth 
in which Zeus turns into a swan because 
he is such a terrible son-of-a-bitch?
In spite of that, I still trust 
birds. Because of that, I assume 
birds are more than they say they are. 
Actually, I’m in the biggest 
body of water ever discovered. I’ve 
just told the funniest joke in the entire 
history of wildness. Only, I don’t know this.

My two favorite souvenir’s are a leaf that my cousin gave me for my birthday when she was three years old, & a pair of tiny shoes my girlfriend brought me from Holland. 

Dalton Day is an editor for FreezeRay Poetry. His poems have appeared in Hypothetical, Former People, and Rufous City Review, among others. He can be found at myshoesuntied.tumblr.com and on Twitter @lilghosthands.