ISSUE: Fall 2017
After the pigs and lambs and rabbits were sold off at auction they
bought a 30 dollar goat and named it Snowflake Brownie and then
a second one called Cookie Dough the third Brandon but the names
melded into dubbing them the Healing Goats brought to the farm to keep
the girls from being so busted up over Pork Chop Charlotte Cotton Candy
Sophie Zoey and Chloe raising them up only to sell them off for slaughter
it’s a mistake to name them but kids name even rocks when I was young I
named a stone Burnt Umber and kept it in a ring box in my pocket symbolic
of the horse I would never have the younger girl allowed herself to be consoled
by the goats’ horizontal pupils their swift heartbeats and she grew from there
into a full-blown sentimentalist while the older girl kept the goats at arm’s-length
averse to being charmed out of her grief which was really anger at God
unable it turns out to once again love but it was she who became a well-to-do
farmer a devoted cynic her mouth drawn into a tight line like a lead rope
