Much Better Than a Goat

Much better than a goat it was to drop

an anarchist from a Park Row window

because he wouldn’t confess to federal agents.

He fell to his death while sitting on the windowsill

holding a pamphlet close to his eyes and maybe

waving his arm in appreciation, and no one

heard him screaming — they were wearing earmuffs

or just they forgot to bring their earpieces

but it was nothing, he was a fiend and a cutthroat

and he would have murdered Rockefeller if he had the chance,

for which reason I have locked my front door

for I can’t find a rat trap big enough.

Copyright Credit: The poem in this issue is excerpted from Divine Nothingness: Poems by Gerald Stern. Copyright 2014 by Gerald Stern. With permission of the publisher, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.

Source: Poetry (December 2014)