Tag: Hilary King

Three Poems by Hilary King

~ ONE ART ~ Leave a comment

A Lesson from Inflatables.

Mornings, let’s nap on the lawn.
Let our plans become puddles
of red, green, and reindeer-colored plastic.
Late afternoon, we’ll plug back in,
fill ourselves with air, sway a little
as the stars come out to see us.
If we topple over, knocked
by winter winds,
have faith that every season
strength needs help to rise,
the sun, a song, a friend
to flip the switch, pull you upright,
tall and beaming on the winter grass.

*

How to Do Holiday Mail

Pluck from the crush of bills
and catalogs the stiff squares
and rectangles, gold embossing
making every return address
an elegance.
Do not open them–
Stack them instead.
Wrap them in red.
Add to the pile every day.
Late Christmas morning,
after the gifts have been pillaged
and the floor tumbleweeded
with boxes and tissue,
sit near the tree, near the family
installing batteries or reading new books,
Sit with your glass or holiday mug
and unwrap the gift of the familiar and beloved.

*

Holiday Calendar

Nevermind the garland sparkling
over the Butterballs
or the panettone crenellated
over discounted bags
of Halloween candy.
Keep your own calendar:
A day saved for baking or
an afternoon of wrapping,
on the floor with ribbon and tape,
a bow stuck to the dog’s paw.
The night time car ride with the kids,
milkshakes thick with peppermint,
Mariah Carey on the radio.
Look at those lights!
Stores, ads, all the oiled machines mean
to spin your time into coin.
Toss the catalogs. Stay away from stores,
keep your hand in your own pocket,
on your own golden hours.

*

Originally from the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia, Hilary King is a poet now living in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. Her poems have appeared in Ploughshares, ONE ART, Salamander, Fourth River, and other publications. She is an editor for DMQ Review, and has been nominated for multiple awards. Her book Stitched on Me was published by Riot in Your Throat Press in 2024.

Two Poems by Hilary King

~ ONE ART ~ Leave a comment

Persimmon Tree in Winter

Grand dame in orange diamonds.
Library with a hundred copies
of the same delicious book.
Last guest to leave the wedding
pocketing the leftover favors.
She poses by the pine tree,
Ignores the evergreen.
I hold my fruit late like that,
certain another summer
will reveal my good. It won’t.
I too shine best in ice.

*

How to Haunt Someone You Love

Fill a kitchen cabinet with coffee mugs.
Plain, fancy, handmade, ceramic,
Santa-faced, jacked-up jack o’lantern,
covered in flowers or cats, quotes from books,
Gifted from work, or swiped.
Fill two shelves of the cabinet.
Stack them on top of each other
so they tilt like trees in a storm
or tombstones in a very old cemetery.
Then die without telling anyone
which was your favorite,
which fit your hand just right.
Make us examine each
of your morning vessels for answers.

*

Originally from the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia, Hilary King is a poet now living in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. Her poems have appeared in Ploughshares, TAB, Salamander, Belletrist, Fourth River, and other publications. Her book Stitched on Me was published by Riot in Your Throat Press in 2024. She loves hiking, travel, and ribbon.

Summer Means Cover Bands in the Park by Hilary King

~ ONE ART ~ 1 Comment

Summer Means Cover Bands in the Park
(Ode to Fleetwood Masque)

And we don’t wait to dance, rising
from our camp chairs with an oof

as soon as the first chord lands,
stampeding slowly past blanket buffets

of charcuterie boards, brownies,
and sweating bottles of sauv blanc.

We rock out to every song, even dance
to Landslide, early August sun still high

over this silver-haired ocean. When
the band takes a break, the tall grass

calls us back, but we remain swaying,
humming to our own distant echoes.

*

Hilary King is a poet originally from Virginia and now living in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. Her poems have appeared or will appear in Ploughshares, Salamander, TAB, Belletrist, SWWIM, Fourth River, The Cortland Review, and other publications. She is the author of the book of poems, The Maid’s Car, the founder of Bay Area Poets, and an editor for DMQ Review.

Three Poems by Hilary King

~ ONE ART ~ 4 Comments

Meeting the Woman Who Saved Donkeys

We meet late. She’s been so busy
being my mother. Now, there is no
husband to wipe up after, no children
to turn an ear to, no horizon sunny enough
to lure her from her three-roomed world.
Appetite opens windows long-nailed shut.
Key lime pie for breakfast, tubs of chocolate frosting
in the fridge, a whip-sharp tirade when I remove
from the grocery cart cinnamon rolls, cookies, more frosting.
She savors the junk mail, carefully reading each slick letter
begging her to help the environment, the veterans,
the long-eared donkeys. I hide her checkbook.
After breakfast, she returns to bed, lays herself
on the pendulum between sleep and dreaming,
a book in one hand, memories in the other.
Waking one day, she smiles when she sees me.
I thought you were my mother, this woman says to me,
smiling. I smile back and I don’t say, Same.

*

Edgestitch

First you were the thread.
Now you are the needle, easing
your mother’s arms into her jacket
as she stands in the doctor’s office,
docile as a child.
Once you chafed in her grip,
mornings she combed out your wildness,
seasons she harvested your flaws,
years you gave her only silence.
She trimmed your hair to above your ears,
you learned how to return her call,
but it took her slow unspooling
to weaken the knots between you.
When she trails off over lunch,
staring silently at her soup, your turn
to talk up the weather, friends, the waitress.
Never huggers or proclaimers of affection,
there was between you, only this fabric.

*

The Cutting

What’s the difference between a tree
and a bush and a happy life
or a wasted one?
I take little credit for this growth except
that I when I saw the opportunity
sitting at the end of a driveway,
I grabbed it to my chest and ran,
the yucca’s spiky leaves pricking my hands,
its thick root a fist banging against my heart.
At home I gauged the sun, the way
we made a list of pros and cons, stay or go.
Planted, the yucca stood upright, alone.
When we arrived here, we were strangers
to everyone but each other.
Was this the trimming we needed?
New dirt and every few years
the pain of sharp shears?

*

Hilary King is a poet originally from Virginia and now living in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. Her poems have appeared in Ploughshares, Salamander, TAB, Door Is a Jar, and other publications. She is the author of the book of poems, The Maid’s Car and is currently studying for her MFA degree at San Jose State University.