Adam Day is the recipient of a 2010 Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship for Badger, Apocrypha. He is also the recipient of a 2011 PEN Emerging Writers Award, and a 2011 Pushcart Prize. His work owes a debt to the editors of the Boston Review, Guernica, AGNI, Forklift: Ohio, The Kenyon Review, and others. He coordinates The Baltic Writing Residency in Latvia, and is an editor for the literary and comics journal, Catch Up, and for Memorious. Though born and raised in Kentucky, he is currently writer-in-residence at Earlham College.

 

 


Badger Alone

 

The whitest days are when no one
comes. I put my scar-knuckled paw
deep into the mailbox in case
some postcard I can’t see has slunk
down. The day is redeemed perhaps
if Daniel comes. He builds anticipation
only to bury it again in the everyday. But
he is almost always too late. Distraction
comes, editing the day. I can’t see
straight. I won’t be told of trials
and journeys. A journey is a trip
to the Pick ‘N’ Save with a goiter. The kids
come; they ramble. People need somewhere
to direct their anger. I’m moving without
destination, so there is mystery,
and to the bathroom again.

 

 

 

Washing Father’s Feet

 

The pads of his paws are cool
and mapped with wet creases

like blades of grass. His figure
arranges itself in my head. Three

or four times bigger than an opera.
There were lots of times I didn’t

love him. But it’s been said I look
like him, or a famous director. The

French always say things are the same
when they aren’t at all. Someone

asked him once, Which god do you
mean? Yours, if you like, by all means,

he answered. That he is sometimes
horrible and still lives. That he is

sometimes horrible and we love him still.

 

 

 

Badger Philosphes

 

I’m not terrified of myself or others, but
myself in the presence of others. It might be
safest to stay home and read. Saturn’s ring
becomes a cast-iron balcony of the house
seen from everywhere on which inhabitants
of the planet take the air in the evening. None
of us is more alone than another and still
no comfort in it. What’s grim? Fashion: My dear
Mr. Death! Lord, you being there and I here, I have
started a program based on gold stars. And red
dots when I am naïve or lacking in
ambition. Friends, sunlight on stones is nothing
like laughter and still there is plenty enough.   

 

 

 

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