"Concession" by Chase Ferree
If every poem I write ends
amidst the leaves or floating
to the clouds, I might as well try
to tell you about the goats.
A whole herd of them
appeared as if from the ground
itself or dumped straight down
from the highway, hundreds
of feet above – paratroopers
or recreationalists, their helmets
shaped around their horns,
their beards dragging in air
as they tumble, I imagine,
in perfect rotations, end
over end around a single
point and landing hooves-first
on grass or spindly branches
in the scrub parallel
to 40th street. From a distance,
I could be sure I saw one falling,
its joints sturdy and malleable,
the perfect shock absorbers. Or
at least I saw it leap fence high
and wondered what it might be like
to watch one climb the balcony
and eat all our plants to the nub.
Chase Ferree (he/him) is a teacher in Seattle, WA. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Emerge Literary Journal, Peripheries Journal, Juke Joint, and elsewhere.
Related Posts
See AllLately, the cat has taken to purring every night around 9. Sometime he drools on his bright orange coat, sometimes he looks like tangled weeds. Last night, people saw northern lights in New Jersey. To
we know it only by its sound the vibration of its wings in the dark. we have tried to trace the chirp, trap it. closed all the windows, taken a broom to the skylight to shake it loose but all that fel