grtymcdowell

What I Know of Goats (revised 10/4/04)

Ive been reading polite
pretty poems lately.
They all seem to encourage
the reader to go out and find nature
for true understanding.
In particular, a Portuguese poet,
Eugenio de Andrade, told me this morning
(or his translator did) that the sexual act
was hay/
ripening in your arms and the poet
euphoric
in your vineyard without wine.
His writing is considered Hellenistic, evocative
of small villages on hillsides, heathen gods
with their flutes.

But what do I know of nature?
I have petted a goat once or twice at the Zoo,
my sticky fingers reaching into
babysitters pockets for spare
change, waiting awkwardly by the side of the fence
while the other children pushed and shoved or maybe
pushing and shoving myself human nature being
not too polite, really.
The other day I drove my blue car to pick up Ann,
with Victoria, on a beautiful day
to the Rose Gardens, and because it was September
the park was rather
quiet and empty. The three of us:
two young woman and the other, less young, only
recently rescued from IV needles disappearing into
her skin, the pulse of weakened wrists like fireflies
in recovery from a fiercely beating heart.

Dear reader, I can talk with you about house plants
about hospital beds surrounded by glowering flower pots
the little mosses in between the cement squares
by the police station and the oil rainbows of absent cars,
and the river a color of barges. The yellow smell
of dried piss on my apartment door entrance,
awkward embraces in movie theatre parking lots,
with cumulous clouds in black and blue overhead, lit-up
by bright street lights. I cant talk with you about
hay or goats, or even identify with Andrades homage to woman, the animal, the cause for he, the man-poet, to sing.

Instead, its late nights in the library,
spaghetti in street corner cafes, other peoples peccadilloes.
Blue men in sweaters and women in heels,
walking around everyday with hearts as open and raw
as canned tuna.

- me