ISSUE: Winter 2018
You can go down for a jouk, I want to say, a gander
at the greylags on the green
that’s not so much a field as a grassy space
where the flats once stood.
They come at the end of November,
fleeing the Icelandic freeze; swapping the aurora borealis
for murals in memory of Stevie McKeague
and Bucky McCullough;
and those for Cromwell, Cúchulainn, Luther
and Iron Maiden’s Eddie the Head
dressed up as The Trooper, moonlighting for the UFF.
Widespread throughout Eurasia, the greylags
of the steppes often winter
on Inner Mongolian paddy fields, where they eat rice.
But on this estate, they make do
with Tayto crumbs and cones of dropped pokes.
When a local finally stuffed one for Christmas dinner,
a scrawl went up on the courthouse wall:
LET IT BE KNOWN
AS WITH TOURISTS
GOOSES TO BE LEFT TO THEIR OWN DEVICES
