I’m sitting under a dead tree
            eating a peach I stole               from a fruit stand
                                                down on eighth.
      The tree is made of charcoal.              The sky is gray with twilight.
                              I’m thinking about how rare
                                                healthy goats are these days.
            A girl stumbles up.      She’s drunk on kerosene.
                  She’s got those raving death circus eyes.
She wants to go to California.             She says she’s got the cigarettes
                                                                                                to do it.
      Someone was asked to put the goat in their car.
            Not an easy task.         Hooves and car doors and
                                                                                    seat belts.
The peach drips yellow on my chin
                                          and the girl says
                                                                  What about Pittsburgh?
                                                      Everyone always asks that.
                                                                  What about Pittsburgh?
      There’s a tunnel there and a hat
                                                but so what.
                  There are a lot of hats.            Hats are not hard to find.
It’s the healthy goats that are rare.
      She says she wants to have a horrible child with me.
                                                I’m not so interested in a horrible child
                                                                              this evening.
                              The peach and the thoughts of the goat are enough.
She says she’s found a way out.
            She starts tying her arms around herself
                                                                  like bandages.
                                    This is her way out.    
            She puts one of her feet up against the side of her head
                                                    like an oblong flesh phone.
I think it’s gone too far now.       She presses her toes with her fingertips
                                                                        trying to get a dial tone.
I don’t want to watch this anymore.          I tell her I’m leaving.
                                                                        I’m leaving I say.
I put the peach seed wrinkled and brown on the dirt in front of her.
                        It is the closest thing to a horrible child
                                                                        we will have together.
I walk away through the rubble         following hoof prints in the ash.
                               I can hear her        months behind me
                                                    screaming into the sole of her foot
                                                            Operator.  Operator.
                                                    Connect me to Pittsburgh.
                                                            I don’t believe in the goat.