"Petting Zoo" by Nicole Homer

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend February 28, 2019   Petting Zoo   Nicole Homer

We pay to enter the dirty pin. We buy small bags of feed to feed the well-fed animals. We are guests in their home, our feet on their sawdust floor. We pretend not to notice the stench. Theirs is a predictable life. Better, I guess, than the slaughter, is the many-handed god. Me? I'm going to leave here, eat a body that was once untouched, and fed, then gutted and delivered to my table. Afterwards, I'll wash off what of this I can. If I dream it will be of the smallest goat, who despite her job, flinched from most of the hands. Though she let me touch her, she would not eat from my palm. In my dream, she'll die of old age and not boredom.            Copyright © 2019 Nicole Homer. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "In the fall, I visited a farm, the kind that sells pumpkins in September and evergreen trees in November. We were there to pick pre-picked pumpkins and enjoy the hayride, but there was a petting pen with goats, lambs, and assorted fowl. They were just one more seasonal attraction. They were so bored of the children who chased them and the apologetic adults attached to those children who offered feed—sold separately from admission—as amends. I haven't stopped thinking about the goat." —Nicole Homer   Nicole Homer is the author of Pecking Order (Write Bloody Publishing, 2017). They are a community college professor and pop culture critic. They live and work in central New Jersey. Poetry by Homer   Pecking Order (Write Bloody Publishing, 2017) "Goat, Cow, Man" by Ellen Bass "Shared Plight" by Kamilah Aisha Moon "A Horse Named Never" by Jennifer Chang February Guest Editor: Clint Smith   Thanks to Clint Smith, author of Counting Descent (Write Bloody Publishing, 2016), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month's weekdays. Read a Q&A with Smith about his curatorial approach this month and find out more about our guest editors for the year. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038