Poetry by Karen Hildebrand

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On Considering a Move to the Country

This was once Factory Hill, a mill 
town that dammed a creek for power. 
High Rock Knitting Company, hollow 
now beside the spillway, wintry pallor, 
red doors steeped in brick. Elegant 
lintels still frame the view, windows--
some boarded, some broke. Beyond 
the building, water plunges down fifteen 
hundred feet of craggy rockface, spectacular 
display, rainbows of ghost yarn billowing 
in the spray. 
                         Mere yards from the cliff, 
I spot a wayward kayak—must have washed 
up in the storm—oarless, orange, caught 
in the brambles, nose lifted, sniffing the wind.

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​Karen Hildebrand is the author of Crossing Pleasure Avenue (Indolent Books). Recent poems appear or are forthcoming in Braving the Body (Harbor Editions), LEON, Mom Egg Review, No Dear, Pigeon Pages, Rust+Moth, Scoundrel Time, Slipstream, Southern Florida Poetry Review, SWIMM, Trailer Park Quarterly, Maintenant, and Beacon Radiant (great weather for MEDIA). Her writing on dance appears in Fjord Review and The Brooklyn Rail, and she has hosted podcast episodes for Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. She lives in Brooklyn.
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