WEBVTT

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Somebody criticized this poem.

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They said that it doesn't
have an ending, but I like it.

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It was my favorite.

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I used to have a goat.

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I had a black goat.

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My sister had a white
goat, and they were--

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my grandfather slaughtered them.

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And I use it in the poem.

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The title is also
the first line.

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"I have got to stop loving you,
so I've killed my black goat.

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His kidney floats in a
bowl, a beige, flat fish,

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around whom parasites, slices of
lemon break through the surface

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of hot broth then sink below as
I bend face down in the steam.

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I hear this will cure anything.

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When I am finished,
I walk up to him.

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He hangs from a
short wooden post,

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tongue stuck out of his mouth,
tasting the hay-flavored air.

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A bib of flies
gather at his throat.

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And further down, where
he is open and bare

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of all his organs, I put my
hand in, stroke him once,

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then taking it out,
look at the sky.

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The storm clouds
there break open.

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And raindrops yellow as
black cats' eyes come down,

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each a tiny river,
hateful and alone.

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Wishing I could get out of
this alive, I hugged myself.

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It is hard to remember
if he suffered much."

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And the bladder, it was
really a pig's bladder

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that my grandmother said if
you boil it or something,

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it will cure colds.

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We had pigs, too, in those days.

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I was about 10, I think.

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