What Rough Beast | Covid-19 Edition | 05 06 20 | Karen Hildebrand

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 Jane Ormerod, George Wallace, Thomas Fucaloro, and other anthologies. Hildebrand lives in Brooklyn.

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