Goat Song

dear adam,

they find you with

your head blown out

down by the pond where

your step dad likes to fish.

the gravel has your bone fragments

and

blood spatter and

brains scattered in it

like the tree in front of you with

the buckshot of your

test fire:

nobody stopped the boy with

the shotgun and the

lawn chair and the

melted butterfinger on

the sidewalk.

so, now, in the low dust

your cracked cellphone.

remnants of

your last meal:

a butterfinger wrapper.

it’s a good neighborhood.

sorry for stealing your shirts.

you’re in that lawn chair --

the one you carried under your arm through the whole

good neighborhood (it’s

a good fucking neighborhood) --

with your neck bent back

and you’re slumped slightly to the side.

you could be sunbathing:

asleep in the

sweet, oklahoma spring,

down by that funny, secret pond

in the center of all the houses

with the flowers all in bloom

in the low, electric buzz of

butter yellow sunshine

but

your brother’s hunting

shotgun: the mossberg.