Waiting beneath broken bridges each week
can show no yield for the warty and odd.
Once, a goat passed whose face and voice were weak,
whose promises of his brother’s blood awed
me into letting him cross as a guest.
My gut could taste succulent goat offal
as a plumper kid soon came, but I should’ve guessed
that this one would get me something awful.
“Kill my bigger brother,” he lowed aloud,
“He ate our mother. He is no Gruff heir.”
“Fine,” my stomach grumbled, and I allowed
his passage as my belly swelled with air.
A bear-sized goat then bore down on me, heeling
my hairy head, which is just now healing.