Answer

by Stephanie L. Harper

what element of the womb’s hush ….little goat
………….groomed your aptitude to bleat so …..sidling
your silken haunches up to me?

the way you press your distended
………….pintsized abdomen against my knee
& butt my outstretched hand
with your horn buds ….begging for the sun-
ripe shoots along the far side of the fence
llllllllllllbrings me to a robust belief in need…

o ….bleating babe no i won’t leave
the farm before the cricket-song’s lull is in full-swing
…………though ….the dusk is rushing in
to replace afternoon’s haze
…………& twilight’s adamant touch would usher me to the dark
of another sleep that sorrows signifiers for insufficiency
…………like the moon ….engorging
on the horizon ….weeps to streak the soft hills silver…

last night ….i dreamed a familiar dream
of my children when they were still young
…………when there was never enough time …..& never enough help
to rise …..& feed so many demands—
…………from the toting of two pajama’d bodies to the car
to park them in a driveway four houses away at the crux
of a convoluted & all-too-realistic breakfast ritual ….to rejections
…………in equal parts irrational & resolute …..of the given
dream-morning’s cereal offerings—
…………& still hope
to make it anywhere on time ….or at all…

what mother doesn’t dream of baby goats?

hear their cries in her mind as melodies & answer
in harmonic bleats?

hunger for sweet greens …….just out of reach?

bed down in warm hay beneath the starlight
bleeding through the barn’s worm-worn roof?

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