This is one of the first poems I was introduced to when I started the Creative Writing program for my undergrad. It sang to me the first time I read it almost a decade ago, and still sings to me now. Definitely in my top five.
I Have Got to Stop Loving You So I Have Killed My Black Goat
-Ai
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, breathing in.
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 stormclouds 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 hug myself.
It is hard to remember if he suffered much.
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