Do No Harm/I Dream of Goat

I haven’t killed a single thing in

Months and hand on heart

It’s getting tiresome.

I take soft steps in my room.

Delicately, I scoop the scorpion out

From under its chair.

The fire ants feast on the soft

Of my thigh and I resist flicking

Then flattening their bodies with my nails.

All summer, I haven’t harmed a living

Thing apart from in my dreams.

I greet the salamanders with a bow

And smile showing no teeth—

    No offence ... no offence!

I am a model of virtue. My axe, it grows dusty.

    Meanwhile, I dream of goat.

In the field of my dreams

I am butchering the ancient woods,

Stoppering the rivers and

Suffocating the flame-pink brain coral.

I have taken to a breakfast of

Warm eggs from the nests.

The black snakes tremble when

I’m close and I eat and eat

Until I’m full of goat then awake in a

Fervour on my thin mattress, the dream curtain

Still fluttering—half in half out of the killings.

The priest determines that dreaming is

Not cheating as we count my miserable sins.

    How harmless can we really be?

Patience, blessed woman, soon you’ll cradle your

Son on the untried temple steps.