In a Japanese museum I watched a video about a goat.

The artist learned that the British Army sent goats

To the Japanese Army in the First World War

For sexual relief, but the Japanese soldiers, confused

As to the meaning of the gift, killed and ate them.

Tracking backward, the artist found so many goats

Had been fucked in the history of war, and was shocked.

She sympathized with the goat, and at a table with

A weak round lamp, used edible paint to copy

Onto computer paper, which goats will eat, a famous painting

Of a soldier having sex with a goat, then brought

The copy to a goat in an otherwise empty field. It took

A long time for the goat to trust the artist enough

To even sniff the painting, and ultimately she had

To lay the painting on the ground at the goat’s feet,

Who was not interested in eating the painting of the goat

Being fucked by a soldier. The artist wanted the goat’s forgiveness

And to express her sympathy by offering this scene to be eaten

And digested. I had tried things like this before.

I had tried to fix everything with a sense of humor.

If I could play piano, I would have no need to go on.

At the pool later, Jessa and my ex-husband sat

Talking about the goat. A family pretended their child’s

Underwear was a real swimsuit like anyone cared.

Happy to be drinking a bucket full of liquor.

Jessa texted her friend Alisanne about the goat.

Goats are demons and lambs are God,

That’s what I always thought, looking at them.

I’ve never spent a night in the woods.

Do I look like I love you, goat, because I do.

George Jones is the unequivocal greatest country singer to ever live.

That’s how I wanted to talk to you at the wedding, but I was chasing

Augie who had just turned three, toward the goats, again,

In the total darkness where we scratched their heads

Craning through the wooden slats, and their golden eyes

With horizontal bands of pupil on either side watched us

As we rubbed their snouts with closed fists. I struck

The balance of the caregiver, pretending I was not

Afraid of the goats so Augie wouldn’t feel afraid of the goats,

Revealing I was somewhat afraid of the goats, so that Augie

Would be reasonably afraid of the goats, so he wouldn’t

Do anything crazy. I saw someone holding the other world,

A waiter holding a tray of Negronis.

Milton’s god is different. These aren’t my kids,

I tell the strangers who admire the kids I’m with

For being beautiful and incapable of dishonest experience.

Childhood was nice.

Nobody had explained to me what parody was,

So nothing was more or less than what I saw. It was better then.

These kids? These aren’t my kids, but they are as incapable

Of dishonest experience as they are incapable

Of taking care of themselves.

And the moon said something.

The fairest of the seasons came true.

The trade-offs came true.

The last time you gave an explanation came true,

And vague and clouded things. Standing with the goats,

Who stare back at us, waiting for us to do something.

The commercial playing in the empty room

Threw royal blue light around the cabin.

From the goat pen I chase Augie to the duck house.

I’m not letting anyone dash his head on the rocks tonight.

Come true, don’t get confused. If I tell you about it,

It’s probably not that bad. If I know you exist,

I’ve been jealous of you for something.

Goats are God and demons are lambs.

It’s getting late, I want to put the kids to bed.

Draw what’s on the table and make it come true.

Draw what’s in the yard and a lot will get left out.

It will be the proof we’re looking for.

The sound of the television trying to cool itself,

Tender things coming true in the strangest places

While the video game controller clicks under thumbs

And the goats run around the cinder block castle

Where the wizard lives in the next level.

I can talk like this because I’m talking to you.

Goats won’t really eat anything,

It’s just their reputation.

He was as drunk as a goat.

I tried to convince myself I understood the joke

Then it came true. I really found it funny.

Some disco music in the driveway,

The creeks in Alabama pulling together for the river,

The day of what we all said.

The first step came true, the deep step from the poem.

Every goat story is the preface to five or six more.

The radio said it’s not morning, but that’s what it is.

Grass and a trampoline with dish soap and the garden hose.

An intense danger underlying all things, to be painted

On computer paper with edible paint. The way the world

Eats you and makes you forgive it.

A list poem is a spell.

They say show don’t tell

But I’m in love with telling.

And you eat it too.

When I research the way goats were used in the first war,

I get only as far as the goat soldiers, not the ones for fucking.

I read of a Canadian goat from Saskatchewan

Who served as a mascot, pushing three soldiers into

A trench to save them from an incoming shell.

The war goats were given their own rations of Guinness

And cigarettes, which they ate.

Every single one of them was named Bill.

These aren’t my kids, I tell the strangers in the park,

But I love these kids. The older one is drawn

To stories from the Bible, drawn to their violence, so

In the park we play Bible as the night falls and the rats

Come closer. Drain the blood of a goat, he says.

And pour it down the baby’s throat, he says.

This is his Bible voice. Kill the firstborn.

Drop the frogs from the sky. Do you see

That it’s not going to end? The goats

Have begotten more goats, which are demons

As opposed to lambs, which are God,

And the story of goats with military rank is a lie

Begetting more lies, and the stories of peace,

Brief and inconclusive, are mute within our

Cycles of violence and forgiveness, specifically

How I sometimes want forgiveness for abuses

I did not commit personally,

And then how I want to be punished

For how greedy I am for that forgiveness.