August 4, 2023

Athena Kildegaard

REPORT FROM A DISTANCE

A tiresome journey
four tires and under
the oil pan
gum we’d drawn
from the ashtray
mintless and stiff
still it did the job
and the tires
did their jolly
revolving and though
there was no
rain the windshield
wipers lay alert
and stiff
good boy
we said whenever
we passed a dog.
 

from Rattle #80, Summer 2023

__________

Athena Kildegaard: “I write poetry because I love words and wordplay, but also because it helps me figure things out.”

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September 24, 2018

Athena Kildegaard

ALLUREMENT

My son calls to tell me
he held the two rabbits
he’d raised and was
about to kill close

to his chest, their hearts
racing, his heart full
of the blood of necessity
and qualm, his heart

filled with a song
of holy lullaby
to calm the creatures,
their warm bodies pulsing

against his, and I think,
as he falls silent on the phone,
that he will, some day—I’m
sure of it—make a good father.

from Rattle #60, Summer 2018

__________

Athena Kildegaard: “I live in western Minnesota, prairie pothole country, not too far north of where Carol and Robert Bly lived. Over the years I’ve met many poets who made pilgrimages to their place. I think of certain poems that way, places to which I make a pilgrimage every once in a while, to remind me of what’s sacred and necessary.” (web)

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