MY GOAT

I eat and I am eaten
- beelzebub

a goat foot is left by the pebble beach fence line
ants a coat a series of odd chewing

my eyes meet the crouch first in linen
sweated oil brown knotted fresh in boot weather

gulp the fish of bad spit and feel it
wade ah-ah in the sea brush to where the goat is kidding

good red air, crabbers down loud in the surf
her mouth on my knee I brush off big barbs

the tail is out with bleats green electric green
scales eeking out of the goat’s second mouth

the frozen talons of the babe slide out in a slow marmalade
of membranes then the light underbody then eyes

goat-like glazed the ouroboros is stillborn
the goat mother cries in the loose darkened sand

her stub leg oozes broken clot on a shell
I break into the gulch of the dragon

sternum unhooked upholstered with new tendons
smells like old tools left outside in the downpour

from the edge of the water the jenny donkey
and her father, a skinny crabber boy in jeans, watch

the trunk of the heart slaps in my skirt pocket as I go
let the yolk of the opulent muscle run

one sheep two sheep three sheep four

the jenny and the boy wet their lips
fill bellies and play tag around the sun

hide ‘n seek hide ‘n seek hide ‘n seek

Maya Stahler is a poet from Oregon who is an MFA candidate at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her most recent work appears/is forthcoming in Longleaf Review, Squawk Back, and BRUISER Magazine.