THE GOAT
ERIN L. MILLER
Waking with the sun, the goat sees the world in one
gold, slender strip. Armed with a Buddhist sense
of reality, he marries his hoof with every surface
at the same point of importance. At the day’s hottest
point, he sacks his thirst with water pooled at the root
formed like a dish. This is the time his fur is at its most
brilliant—a bold, reddish planet. A place where
actions are made by pure reaction and need.
Where evening spreads, he watches the blue house
of the future cast in front of him. If the time comes
when the goat’s head is severed, he’ll sing a song—
like all good music, it will hold a low timbre.
His horns will act as two coiled phonographs.
The sound will billow out of him like bulbous
sheets of canvas. It will climb out of him
like a man coming out of a man.
Listen to Erin read "The Goat" below:
ERIN L. MILLER is a copywriter and poet based in Durham, North Carolina. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing at Bowling Green State University. Her poetry and reviews have appeared in Best New Poets, Whiskey Island, Bluestem, Black Warrior Review, and others. She was the recipient of a Devine Fellowship in 2013.