The Burdens

Before any of it, a goat appeared

in a piebald sweater, beardless

and tethered at the collar

on half a tennis court of land

up a rutted lane above the road.

Doubtless a horse once clip-clopped there

before a trap, a whip, a tweed of farmer

with bushels and crates

of cabbages, parsnips, blue duck eggs

to pay the country doctor.

Not now, and not then,

we drive home between the fields.

She is radioactive, or lately was,

and sleeps on the doses of nitrogen mustard

a country doctor has called for.

Little goat forgive me. I shouldn’t do this.

All you do is munch your poxy plain of grass,

your kingdom for a caper.

If at night you sing your tired chin to sleep,

it’s not a metaphor, it’s a tragedy.

Instead, let’s say a ship arrived one day.

Let’s say its decks were delicate, polished oak.

Let’s say happy impossible winds steered it.

Let’s say the captain, sweeping his spyglass

over the hills, after all this time, found us.