Karen Hildebrand
Marathon
Yesterday has lost
its solid footfall
to a set of new rules
each nested inside
an ever smaller set.
I say yes to the starfish,
the way she regenerates
her damaged parts.
Yes, to a graying beauty
who wears her hair
in a single braid, shotgun
over her shoulder.
Yes, to a slender slice
of chocolate cake.
With every birdsong
comes a shiver. A smile
can flatten time—
that flapping magpie.
I can’t look
into the bright eyes
of a puppy, without
seeing loss ahead.
Would that I comb my hair
with finer teeth, polish
my toes with steel,
gaze beyond a sea
of bobbing white heads
as they cross the finish.
—Submitted on 03/27/2020
Karen Hildebrand is the author of Crossing Pleasure Avenue (Indolent Books, 2018). Her poems have appeared in Blue Mesa Review, 14 Hills, A Gathering of the Tribes, and other journals, as well as in It’s Animal But Merciful (great weather for MEDIA, 2012), edited by de Hildebrand lives in Brooklyn.
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