Eucalyptus by Athena Kildegaard



 
Peeling as if its life
depended on it—
in great gray ribbons—
to reveal its marbled
stateliness—a certain
shot silk mien,
a remarkable likeness
to a made thing,
though no weaver
(other than, perhaps,
God) has put his shuttle,
no other sculptor his chisel,
to its art, it stands
as if it has been standing
here longer
than memory encompasses,
peeling without
diminishment, in constant
revelation, as if,
to the world, it never
gives up on the idea
that it might be revealed
as more, rather than less,
an accumulation,
rather than a reduction,
of its true self.
 

Why I Am Not a Republican
 
I came downstairs from my desk,
a break from writing standardized
test questions (re: Anchorage,
Moose in)--purely mercenary work--
in time (it's December 11, 2000)
to catch CNN air the recording
of The Nine (Rehnquist, et. al.) robed
black, but who would know
since we're not allowed in via
camera, they could be naked or
wearing hibiscus-ed mumus
and seed-caps with big white hands
you can make clap with the yank
of a string. I can only spare
fifteen minutes. The cat emerges
from the yard with a grasshopper,
green, bigger than a pocket knife,
wounded, only able to jump
as high as a peanut-butter jar.
Scalia interrupts, the cat paws
and jaws, I watch him and listen,
(cats can be stealthy and quiet
as mice), it gets interesting,
the questions, the interruptions,
and I look away from the cat's
game, but by the time I turn back
he's had his lunch. A wing, a leg,
that's all that's left, there on the floor
before the television set.
 

 

ATHENA O. KILDEGAARD lives in Guanajuato, Mexico. Her poems have appeared in The Cream City Review, Mid-American Review, Faultline, The Seattle Review, and elsewhere. She is currently translating the poems of Jaime Sabines, some of which have appeared in this venue.

Click here to read more poems by Athena Kildegaard and her translations of Jaime Sabines' poems.

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