What Rough Beast | Poem for February 10, 2018

Kathleen Hellen
When stars threw down their spears

—after Blake

Here’s a woman—102—(the oldest that we knew)
who fans herself with programs
of her thanks

the pace car leading
feathered caps,
buttons, badges

3.3 degrees above the average

For now at least—
we hitch our flags to wagons, quarter watermelon
drink sweet tea in gallons

warmer than
the normal, hotter than the record set
in ’36 —

we pledge allegiance. The color guard saluting
the children hula hooping. Later
firecrackers. Later

clouds like scattered sheep
The shearing of the season
The blackened sky that swallowed wheat

The moon sneaks up on sinew. Can you see?
the stars o, say,

the coldest winter coming

Kathleen Hellen is the author of Umberto’s Night (Washington Writers’ Publishing House, 2012), winner of the Jean Feldman Poetry Prize, and two chapbooks, The Girl Who Loved Mothra (Finishing Line Press, 2010) and Pentimento (Finishing Line Press, 2014). Her poems have appeared in journals including American Letters and Commentary, Barrow Street, The Massachusetts Review, New Letters, Prairie Schooner, The Sewanee Review, and others, as well as in Nasty Women Poets: An Unapologetic Anthology of Subversive Verse (Lost Horse Press, 2017). Her poems have been awarded the Thomas Merton poetry prize and prizes from the H.O.W. Journal and Washington Square Review.

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