The Park

at night
the whistling of the wind
through the leaves of the old maple tree
at the heart of the park
sounds just like a baby
sighing in his sleep

if I was
even slightly superstitious
you might even say the sighing
of the wind through the park at night
sounds just
like the last
dying gasps of

the baby they found abandoned
under the tree
last summer
stroller filled so high
with autumn leaves


Holly Day is a housewife and mother of two living in Minneapolis, Minnesota who teaches needlepoint classes in the Minneapolis school district. Her poetry has recently appeared in Hawai'i Pacific Review, The Oxford American, and Slipstream. Her book publications include The Book Of, A Bright Patch of Sunlight, Music Composition for Dummies, Guitar-All-in-One for Dummies, and Music Theory for Dummies, which has recently been translated into French, Dutch, Spanish, Russian, and Portuguese.