Les plus lus ▸
Toby Olson
Remember this Goat to the Pig,
for far away glances and everything
gathered together & eaten.
Everything Goat has eaten
Pig has considered, as
has the whole barnyard:
as chicken
longs to put beak
to the neck of the farmer.
Goat spent hours alone
digesting
while Pig was thinking
of hen's eyes beyond
the henhouse
beyond these fences.
Will
followed creek upstream
till lost in stones
wait in a dark
cloak
for ride
east.
road goes up in brown hills
ten thousand men
walk in the gardens of the prophet
no cars
white & black goats in shallow wash
mountains move far away
I GIVE the undertakers permission to haul my body
to the graveyard and to lay away all, the head, the
feet, the hands, all: I know there is something left
over they can not put away.
Let the nanny goats and the billy goats of the shanty
people eat the clover over my grave and if any yellow
hair or any blue smoke of flowers is good enough to grow
over me let the dirty-fisted children of the shanty
people pick these flowers.
I have had my chance to live with the people who have
too much and the people who have too little and I chose
one of the two and I have told no man why.