The Goat

Gonaives, Haiti

You emblem of the night’s fertility,
you drunk, moonbitten thing,
you raw meat.

Do you know what you are?
Years ago, a woman
hid herself inside you,
seeking a full hold on
wildness, seeking
the Root.

Behind your milky, willful
eyes, she saw a place
that could keep her.

Now there’s something in you
like thunder’s that’s been
locked away,
some terrible sleep,
some unnameable, vaginal
emotion.

But you,
you bleat ridiculously, at nothing;
and let wasps swim in your thick,
half-human smell.

You lay down beside the road
and your eyes,
like slits of innocent teeth,
eat the opening flowers, the bloodflowers
and the falling rice.

So when we cut you open and
plunge the blades
of our hands
into your body,

it’s only to retrieve what you’ve hidden
inside that uniform
of stubborn ignorance:

Your sweating, starry organs,
and your ancient heart
made of blue ash and purpose.