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)
