Somebody criticized this poem.
They said that it doesn't have an ending, but I like it.
It was my favorite.
I used to have a goat.
I had a black goat.
My sister had a white goat, and they were--
my grandfather slaughtered them.
And I use it in the poem.
The title is also the first line.
"I have got to stop loving you, so I've killed my black goat.
His kidney floats in a bowl, a beige, flat fish,
around whom parasites, slices of lemon break through the surface
of hot broth then sink below as I bend face down in the steam.
I hear this will cure anything.
When I am finished, I walk up to him.
He hangs from a short wooden post,
tongue stuck out of his mouth, tasting the hay-flavored air.
A bib of flies gather at his throat.
And further down, where he is open and bare
of all his organs, I put my hand in, stroke him once,
then taking it out, look at the sky.
The storm clouds there break open.
And raindrops yellow as black cats' eyes come down,
each a tiny river, hateful and alone.
Wishing I could get out of this alive, I hugged myself.
It is hard to remember if he suffered much."
And the bladder, it was really a pig's bladder
that my grandmother said if you boil it or something,
it will cure colds.
We had pigs, too, in those days.
I was about 10, I think.