The Goat
I sat outside Dad’s vacant house and watched
lungfuls of schwag blur the straggly leafy sprawl
of a forest mending from a clear cut a few years back--
a next chapter scrawled in pulpy cursive--
when a goat moseyed up to sneakers I’d left on the grass.
“What the hell is a goat doing here?” I asked,
but no one was around to answer.
I wondered: did the question really materialize,
bloom from synapse to lips like ape unfurling from crouch
in nude time-lapse into modern Man?
Or did it merely echo inside my skull, an urgency
almost capable of begetting thought bubbles?
The goat turned its head; its pupils poked with human squint
through branches tangled like a map-maker’s
waste-basket. At that moment, I knew I’d asked the question.
I avoided eye contact, afraid it would realize I thought it was crazy.
“I didn’t actually intend for you to answer,” I explained.
The goat lowered its head and began to gnaw
the soles of my shoes, its beard dragging the ground.
The bell around its neck jangled like a tambourine,
the lone sound in the reenacted forest.
but no one was around to answer.
I wondered: did the question really materialize,
bloom from synapse to lips like ape unfurling from crouch
in nude time-lapse into modern Man?
Or did it merely echo inside my skull, an urgency
almost capable of begetting thought bubbles?
The goat turned its head; its pupils poked with human squint
through branches tangled like a map-maker’s
waste-basket. At that moment, I knew I’d asked the question.
I avoided eye contact, afraid it would realize I thought it was crazy.
“I didn’t actually intend for you to answer,” I explained.
The goat lowered its head and began to gnaw
the soles of my shoes, its beard dragging the ground.
The bell around its neck jangled like a tambourine,
the lone sound in the reenacted forest.