Goosestep

A collector of   walks, I was practicing my llamastep

when one of   those white geese with the knob

of cheddar on its bill honked at the goslings

ignoring the art of the rank and file so adored

by Mussolini and other assorted lunatics

who I have trouble believing could ever raise one leg

parallel to the earth they scorched without falling

prey to gravity that was given a special kind of dominion

over the fascist paunch, a shabby thing

I have never seen hang around the waist of a goose,

though who can say for sure under all that heavenly

down where the hips of a goose begin and end; and even

if   tomorrow some budding scholar published a treatise

titled The Mystery of Goose Hips to fanfare,

it would be an exaggeration of   the grossest kind

to equate a goose’s trumpet with the barking

from the balcony by the sad bullies whose love

of   the locked leg I will never understand

since the knee was so obviously made to flex,

which means locking one is most likely a kind of sin

against Darwin or God, both of whom I think

would disapprove of anything so unnatural

as even twenty people moving in stiff unison

to music unless the brass and strings

were just about to sway and bend to the hot

version of  “When the Saints Go Marching In.”