The Invisible Goat

The Invisible Goat

            We were visiting some sort of historical farming re-enactment with our granddaughters. Kim had wandered off with the girls while I leaned on the wooden fence of an empty pen. Soon a little boy joined me.

            “What are you doing?”

            “I’m watching the invisible goat.”

            He nodded and came over to stand next to me. Soon he pointed and said, “Look, there’s another one.”

            “Thanks, I didn’t notice that one before.”

            Our pointing attracted several more kids. One of them said, “I don’t see any goats.”

            “That’s because they are invisible,” my new friend explained to him.

            The parents soon appeared, gathered up their kids, and hustled them away, some with worried looks over their shoulders.

            Then it was just me and the goat.

No Rules Chess

        i.

No Rules Chess we call it

my young son and I frowning

across the board like

his big brother and me

sliding our men in turn

anywhere

lining up captives

at the edge but not too

often or the game ends

too soon.

        ii.

He joins the class, uninvited,

after lurking outside the door

for a week in ill-fitting

clothes then appearing sudden

as a bounced check.  He struggles

with his chair to join us then

mutters and proclaims with wild

hands and troubled skin.

He apes us all.

help me I can help you

inside my poems are so

lovely like mushrooms

in rhyme I want you all

to hear my orphan poems

help me let you hear them

or I will shoot you I

awoke and was no longer

one of the patients I

was in a nightmare

surrounded by 30 screaming

inmates here I am home

We applaud, nod, thank him.

We ask him not to come back, saying

Come back.

I’m not sure how the story and the poem fit together, or even how the two parts of the poem fit together. If anyone can up with a profound explanation, I’d be delighted to hear it at dstring@ix.netcom.com.