Holly Welker

Willing the Storm

Beautiful Naked Women

Beautiful naked women turn up all over, 
in California they hide behind redwoods, 
in Paris they picnic on the grass. 
My doctor sends me a postcard of a plump nude

Commerce

Sitting naked by the pool I can see 
many more trees than the two very tall 
ones visible from my kitchen window 
as shadows in the early morning. If 

I Can Wait For

I purposely forget what you look like 
so each time I see you I am surprised 
again by your beauty. Your name is the 
charm I offer nervous cats instead of 

Innocence

I confess I have invented a word 
for the thing I am and the thing I have done. 

It is a pleasant word and may be spoken 
to young children or written in their books.

Nickel Girls

Sometimes boys would stand 
on the high school stairs 
and throw nickels at girls 
in low-cut blouses, hoping 

Variation on a Love Letter

I have written this letter to you before 
and I will write this letter to you again. 
In it I tell you that the days are starkly blue
and unbearably warm, that the cooling storms

Postcard

I debated hours, whether to send you a kiss 
by the river or the overabundant lips 
of a Rosetti madonna. You get both: See 
the pansies the madonna holds? That’s how I know

A Body That Expands

My sister sings Puccini in the shower. 
A fever ripped the muscle of her heart 
when she was five but now she is almost 
twenty-one and lovely. She leaves music 

Brando

Marlon Brando’s such a babe in Guys and Dolls,
it’s an ideal, makes you feel 
positively reverent, same as orange blossoms, 
the way they delicately ask to seduce 

The Invisible Woman

The invisible woman is angry. 
Boy is she mad. 
She took her books to the library last night 
and last night she burned the library down. 

Ghost Month

In China, in August, ghosts are released 
from hell for a month of fun. Late July 
behind the gates, ghosts start queuing up, 
raising their hands and swearing to the guards

Because Last Night Was Friday Night

Because last night was Friday night 
I had to search to find a quiet place 
and when I found it I wanted to leave it 
though I wasn’t even working off a mean gin drunk. 

What You Walk Away From

Jesus said, “An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign.” In fact, that statement shows up in the New Testament three times: in Mat thew 12:39, in Matthew 16:4, and again in Luke 11:29.…

Indian Summer

If, when September rolls over in the gutter, 
picks himself up and stumbles off 
in search of a restroom, coffee and eggs, 
you pull back the drapes and slide open the window,
he will disregard the screen and make himself your guest. 

Commonplace Nightmares

Most likely it was an act of God that 
the cathedral caught fire even before 
the hangman put the mask on my head 
and all my executioners ran in search of water 

Dig

I began to dream I 
was soil and you 
were a plant that grew 
in me, root hard 

Junior Companion

Mormon missionaries in Taiwan weren’t hard to spot, not only because of those white shirts and name tags. First of all, they were usually of European descent, and those white faces became luridly conspicuous among…

The Meadow

My family and I drove hours one Sunday to see 
a meadow in the mountains of Arizona. We stood 
behind a split-rail fence. “It’s beautiful,” 
my dad said. “It’s for sale. If we had money 
we’d buy it.” And we climbed the fence 
and wandered that acre of wildflowers and ferns, 
ate fried chicken and picked up our litter, 
and went home. 

Self-Portrait as Burnt Offering

A Price Far above Rubies versus Eight Cows: What’s a Virtuous Woman Worth?

The Plan of Stagnation: A Review of Elna Baker, The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance