A whole field of wild green grass
Thin blades shimmering in daylight.

We'd gather what was sufficient for
the goats. It felt like a sort of love–

our cutlass around a shrub, the chopping
sound. Once, the goat I liked most

labored to walk. I remember my
teenage palm, held apart, tapping it

to hurry home before the rain. Next  
day I awoke & the goat was gone.

It was sick with pox, my grandfather
said, hoping I'd understand how one

slain goat could save the rest. I saw
the ground in which he lowered it,

saw the knife that made it quick. This
must have been my first real grief.

How, before then, I thought that this
animal, grey & tender, would forever

bleat. I called it Horse. I was so silly
I once attempted to ride on it, & slipped.

Every evening, after grass feeding,
I would walk it home like we were

each other's kin. I don’t know which
is worse: misinterpreting a hint

from the dying or the fact it turned
out to be their last. But I was grateful

for whatever it had tried to say, that
day in the bush, the sky above us

a pocketful of rain. How hard it had
fought. As if it felt the door of its

soft animal body shutting & so it
did what any good friend would have

done: Force itself over & over to stay
with me even though it couldn’t.