When The Students Ask About the Significance of Goats in My Book

There are goats because Megan was an opera singer who quit college to become an anarchist. Her parents kept her Texas bedroom floral and full of Jesus in hopes she would come home.

31st Street House didn’t have any rooms so she moved into Clementine. Megan made more things out of dumpstered bananas than we knew was possible. When she sang in the shower, we huddled near the door until the faucet squeaked.

Megan dated Matt who lived at 31st. Matt had a couple of goats. The goats would hang out in our backyard eating unmowed grass while Megan and Matt planned actions. Megan had a couple of rats for these actions.

That summer, one of the rats got loose in her Blazer. It died under the hood somewhere but she couldn’t find the carcass. It smelled so godawful that each time Megan took the kids and goats to the woods, she’d rip a bundle of Sweet Annie from the garden.

When each child had a fist full of weeds, they’d drive away with the windows down, their Sweet Annie mustaches blowing in the hot air.

By Winter, Megan broke up with Matt and moved to the Hoh rainforest. Now she teaches nonviolent communication and has her own goats. This is the only poem of mine that mentions them.