Drowned Goslings
by Steel Wagstaff
genre:
Poetry
description:
This is another poem. I wrote this following the Coleridge method, sans opium, waking from a dream that I could not shake. Sadly, or perhaps not, no one came visiting and disrupted the steady flow of inspiration. It's still very rough.
chapters
chapter 1:
chapter 1
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updated 08/07/07
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3187 characters
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0 people liked it
Who knows the evil sufficient unto the day,
the evil mercifully betrayed by its own obscurity?
Who knows the things which darkness hides
from our eyes, the things which must penetrate
our dreams, pierce our hearts vaguely as we turn
from restless side to side? There is the faint pulsing
in our temples, the sudden worry in total shade that the door
perhaps is unlocked, that this very moment a strangeness
walks just outside your daughter’s door, that nothing
will ever be right again, that your sleeping itself is dishonest.
These things cannot be spoken, not even to your wife, who
sleeps on faithfully beside you, eyes fluttering beneath their veiny lids.
These bodies will desert us, not only
when we don’t need them
but when they don’t need us, don’t need the mind
forever worrying.
You rise and dress, pulling one leg up
while leaning against the dresser, dragging
the other up and into your pants. She is still sleeping
and you feel glad, feel invisible, but do not trust
this feeling and take your socks with you
into the living room where you slide your toes
noiselessly wriggling as far as they’ll go into cotton.
This morning you will walk out along your driveway
and see the blackberry bushes, maybe pull a few
from their branches and will look at the young goslings
you have installed in the old dog run.
The blackberries are there, are as to be expected, fulsome
delightful, with a pleasure that is impossible to prolong;
which is never enough. You sweep the dribble off your chin
with the back of your hand and walk briskly to see the goslings.
It is unspeakable, what you find in the Tupperware storage unit
you filled with water and placed into the earth. Seven bodies float,
bobbing in the shallow water. A small bristle
sticks in your molars as you crouch down,
reaching through the chain link, fiddling to release the lock.
Take them out, their feathers oily and soaked with a wetness
that cannot be wrung out. Their bodies, swollen
with a deceptive lightness, move towards your hands
as tired of being in the water as anything else. You think of your wife,
sleeping, of the goslings drowned, wasted, of the $49.31
that a box of 24 cost you and start to take them to the black dumpster
behind the shed. You life the lid and drop the bodies in, one by one
on top of the week’s refuse, taking care not to crush their
little bones, thinking strangely of dignity and how
to make them most comfortable in death. They did not even have
names yet. When it is finished, you take the Tupperware
and pull it from the earth, you spill its contents in a gushing flood
of grimy water that smells of down and blackberries
and toss it into the dumpster, beside the goslings. For a second
you think to find the lid and place the gosling back in the box,
maybe even to wrap them in cloth or a paper towel, but
there is no time.
You walk to your car, start it
and only then do you see your fingers,
clutching the ring of keys, stained
with crimson that you cannot get off,
the juice of the blackberries that will not wash off.
You would almost like to cry, if only
there was time.
back to top
the evil mercifully betrayed by its own obscurity?
Who knows the things which darkness hides
from our eyes, the things which must penetrate
our dreams, pierce our hearts vaguely as we turn
from restless side to side? There is the faint pulsing
in our temples, the sudden worry in total shade that the door
perhaps is unlocked, that this very moment a strangeness
walks just outside your daughter’s door, that nothing
will ever be right again, that your sleeping itself is dishonest.
These things cannot be spoken, not even to your wife, who
sleeps on faithfully beside you, eyes fluttering beneath their veiny lids.
These bodies will desert us, not only
when we don’t need them
but when they don’t need us, don’t need the mind
forever worrying.
You rise and dress, pulling one leg up
while leaning against the dresser, dragging
the other up and into your pants. She is still sleeping
and you feel glad, feel invisible, but do not trust
this feeling and take your socks with you
into the living room where you slide your toes
noiselessly wriggling as far as they’ll go into cotton.
This morning you will walk out along your driveway
and see the blackberry bushes, maybe pull a few
from their branches and will look at the young goslings
you have installed in the old dog run.
The blackberries are there, are as to be expected, fulsome
delightful, with a pleasure that is impossible to prolong;
which is never enough. You sweep the dribble off your chin
with the back of your hand and walk briskly to see the goslings.
It is unspeakable, what you find in the Tupperware storage unit
you filled with water and placed into the earth. Seven bodies float,
bobbing in the shallow water. A small bristle
sticks in your molars as you crouch down,
reaching through the chain link, fiddling to release the lock.
Take them out, their feathers oily and soaked with a wetness
that cannot be wrung out. Their bodies, swollen
with a deceptive lightness, move towards your hands
as tired of being in the water as anything else. You think of your wife,
sleeping, of the goslings drowned, wasted, of the $49.31
that a box of 24 cost you and start to take them to the black dumpster
behind the shed. You life the lid and drop the bodies in, one by one
on top of the week’s refuse, taking care not to crush their
little bones, thinking strangely of dignity and how
to make them most comfortable in death. They did not even have
names yet. When it is finished, you take the Tupperware
and pull it from the earth, you spill its contents in a gushing flood
of grimy water that smells of down and blackberries
and toss it into the dumpster, beside the goslings. For a second
you think to find the lid and place the gosling back in the box,
maybe even to wrap them in cloth or a paper towel, but
there is no time.
You walk to your car, start it
and only then do you see your fingers,
clutching the ring of keys, stained
with crimson that you cannot get off,
the juice of the blackberries that will not wash off.
You would almost like to cry, if only
there was time.
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