Gretel 4.

There’s nothing wrong with your legs
but I’ll rub in the liniment anyway
knowing all along that you’ve decided
the way a goat will
to die just because
and nothing can tempt you back
not even the wind and new fall
of sweet leaves along the creek.
Astronomy is what I’m left
with you bony old goat
in a field of white stars
burned out
across a void that weighs like grief
I’ll say your name.
And in the pasture, in the months to come,
I’ll stop over the gray droppings,
a dumb poet
who's on to nothing,
still attached to the ordinary.