Karen Hildebrand

The Dig (Puberty)

Deep in my mother’s bureau
drawer, I find a jewelry box
brimming with colored beads
like the floaters that bob between
swim lanes at the pool
and rope my arms and throat
with turquoise lime popsicle
pink. I help myself to a vast
brassiere, cups like Bedouin
tents in the Sahara, squint
at the mirror: shabby girdle
garters like dog teats flapping
my thighs, balled up socks
for boobs, maidenly cotton
briefs, rust in the crotch
as if tattooed with a ghost
of fertility; thirsty leaf cutting
in a jar waving its pale feeder
roots; baby goat swallowing
even the plastic bucket.          

Karen Hildebrand                           

From Colorado, Karen Hildebrand has ranch and dairy farm roots and now lives in Brooklyn. She is the author of Crossing Pleasure Avenue (Indolent Books, 2018). New poems appear in Defunct, No Dear, Poetry Bay, Quarter After Eight, Scoundrel Time, South Florida Poetry Journal, Trailer Park Quarterly, and Maintenant, a journal of contemporary dada writing and art. She recently retired as editor in chief of Dance Teacher and earned an MFA degree from the Program for Writers of Warren Wilson College.