Goat

Quite unprepared for its irrelevance
the mind goes wandering, its familiar
towns and flowers grown so insensitive
to mention. The library has been well
attended to—though could always
be dusted, it’s true, its contents
shuffled to find a new foundation
for their organizing logic. Objects
in the busy shop windows buzz
and call out their seductions
like faces it has seen before
and, of which, having known them,
it already has grown tired.
Perhaps it could take itself travelling!
And discover under the gift wrap
of difference the hard fullness
of the world toothing through.
Wonder at it, yes—tireless and old
and tyrannical and everywhere and true.
Surely there is no end to the bends
and angles we might break in it,
the number of faces we might hold up
to the light for light
to tumble off or clatter through.
The goddesses and the goblins
and the faerie children stalking you
on tip-toe, rolling up your shadow
to leave you traceless
before they stuff you underground—
how undifficult, in comparison,
to be sunflower, all head fat and yellowness,
above ground, eminently discoverable!
So thinks the sooty troll inside
the engine room under the blood
-limned scalp, so out of touch
with radiance. His heart, a procession
of goats crossing to feast on the far side
of an ugly bridge (his!) and never
coming back. Maddened to paralysis
by the insatiability of his desire,
he can’t tell which he wants: to rise
and snatch them as they pass,
or to wait—just a little bit longer,
granting them passage, crushing
the dark like an amulet around himself.