Past Flight, and: Gone

Abstract

Past Flight, and: Gone Holly Day (bio) Past Flight Sometimes, poemsare as elusiveas orgasms. However,when it comesto losing my placein a poem I can only blame myself. [End Page 178] Gone There's this guy who walks past me every morning when I take the dog out.He's super friendly and says hi to everyone, even when he's on the other side of the street.Today, I passed him and I said hi but he looked down on the ground,his face covered in a mask, hands shoved deep in his pockets,body tucked into itself to take up as little space as possible.He didn't say anything.This is what this disease has done to us.This is what this disease has done to him. My dog sees other dogs in the neighborhood that she usuallygets to sniff and say hi to but we can't do that anymore, she tugs at her leashand I yank her back towards the house, we can't stop.There's this lady that owns this dog that usually just runs around the neighbor- hoodand her dog runs up to us and I have to pull my dog away quickly, say"We can't play today, I'm sorry," and the lady who owns the doglooks so sad, as if I rejected her dog out of some kind of spite, like I rejected her.This is what this disease has done to our neighborhood.This is what this disease has done to my dog. Inside, my daughter fights with the inadequate wireless connection for her schoolwork,the same connection I've used for years without complaint, but suddenlynothing is good enough, our house isn't big enough,it grows smaller by the day. Every door in our house is shut. We all have a room,a place to get away from each other to hide.There's mention of escape in every conversation,something that'll have to take place in some unspecified future.This is the thing that's killing me.This is the thing we're all learning to live with. [End Page 179] Holly Day holly Day's writing has recently appeared in Analog SF, The Hong Kong Review, and Appalachian Journal. She currently teaches at the Loft Literary Center in Minnesota and the Richard Hugo House in Washington. Copyright © 2023 University of North Dakota