Kid

Photo courtesy of Hannes Lindahl

Kid died yesterday,
Teeth clenched to a wire fence
Overlooking the hills with the chestnut trees.
 
“The heavier life on earth,
The lighter the soul as it returns,”
My son wrote, from Kid’s cruel deathbed.
 
Outside was mother,
Brother, sister,
The sweet pasture never tasted.
 
Born too early, too small,
Too black, too delicate,
Too good for this impatient world.
 
Oversized ears like airplane wings
Over a vanishing body
Carry Kid away from here.
 
The unclean cage,
Where he stopped drinking.
Gleams in the searing heat.
 
Cow’s milk sours and curdles
At the memory of Kid
Convulsing on the pavement.
 
The phone camera turns black
After videoing Kid, listless,
a starving child in war.
 
The body is in a box
Unceremoniously covered in plastic
But Kid’s not there.
 
A gentle, dissenting hand holds his spirit,
Strokes its aching ribs,
Acknowledges its beating heart.
 
The smell of love in the used shirt
Smuggled into the cage during last days
Fills its nostrils like wildflowers.
 
It remembers the tall, bearded man, the son,
Who picked Kid up when his legs buckled, whispering,
“Leave this place,” under a rose-hued evening sky.
 
Dedicated to the life and death of a week-old goat, our teacher in these times.