your goatish, dim soul
"goat of my soul" ZJC (2008)
I have been working on this sonnet during the long night (tomorrow classes start and my sleep schedule is all thrown off, whaa!) and wanted to share it with you. It is a rough draft. Very rough. But life is like that in the wee hours of the morning before my second cup of coffee, liquid goodness. Cheers!
Now cup your hands. Hold them out like begging
or prayer. In that space where your palms do not
touch think of something decaying, something
live. Breathe in the goatish air of swamps, what
others call “swamp pussy.” Now cup your hands.
Hold them out to implore, pray. All the rot
of your swamplands is burning. Your swamplands
on fire in your poor, cupped hands. You cannot
let go. I'll pray for you and your goatish,
dim soul; a beast led to slaughter. Don't hope
the goat knows the end of the rope. When prayer
stops. When the goat is pulled forward. I wish
I will never see that. The knife, the rope
and that terrible motion in the air.