​Figure of a Farmer Holding a Goose, by Jody Winer

Figure of a Farmer Holding a Goose, by Royal Copenhagen Manufactory (Denmark) 1780

​Figure of a Farmer Holding a Goose
                       
I could go for a man like this. His skin
literally porcelain. Diminutive, he fits
 
in a pocket. And he’s Danish! 
He courts me with live poultry 
 
and a backpack full of items I imagine: 
summer beer (the same Ditley Hansen’s 
 
brew he spoon-feeds his wounded horse), 
black bread, salted herring, a sweet hunk 
 
of butter. Even cutlery and a rustic 
blue cloth! Perhaps a flute or lute. So what 
 
if he’s out of fashion, if his short pants 
and white stockings scream 1780. 
 
He looks sturdy, has survived centuries. 
His white shirt shines pristine, his brass
 
buttons wink, his waistcoat glows a grassy  
green. He keeps his beard and mustache neat. 
 
Though he’s likely not a delightful 
conversationalist, nor one for inventive 
 
recreation, he’s honest and solid. 
The type I should have married. 
 
He grows potatoes and cucumbers, owns 
a goose. Maybe geese! He understands 
 
what’s of use. Young women will look 
right past him. Once I would have, too.

Jody Winer

Jody Winer's poems have appeared in Epoch, The Massachusetts Review, Open City, phoebe, Poet Lore, The Saint Ann’s Review, South Carolina Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, The Atlanta Review, The Harvard Crimson, Mudfish, and elsewhere. Winner of the 2019 Finishing Line Press Competition, her chapbook Welcome to Guardian Angel School was published in 2020. She is a fellow of MacDowell and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Raised in Florida, she lives in New York and has worked as a librarian, writer, and dog wrangler.