The Old Green One by Holly Day

I will make you a music box from a porn star

fill her insides with gears and whistles, a key

that comes out of her navel for turning

in the hot summer sun

or under the stars at night.

When our daughter is older, I will explain the porn star

in the basement, tucked away with your dirty magazines

your crumpled, dented trombone. I will tell her how even music

can be base and indecent, and all that I know

about lonely breasts and constellations.

Holly Day’s poetry has recently appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Grain, and The Tampa Review. Her newest poetry collections are Into the Cracks (Golden Antelope Press), and Cross Referencing a Book of Summer (Silver Bow Publishing).