Goats Evade Demands and Chains, by Jamie Wendt

Going Home on Shabbat, by Todros Geller (USA, b. Ukraine) 1930

​Goats Evade Demands and Chains
  
The pull of the goat is the pull of tradition
and my world is slanting, as predicted.
 
The goat knows
it needs milking
before sundown. 
The goat knows
the lean 
 
of my black-panted knee
mirrors the jutting bend
of every diagonal line
of this town, stacked
homes held together 
with broken hinges, swinging 
shutters into slices of sky. Bodies
yank away from the centre.
 
The house needs straightening. 
The town is tilting. 
 
In Chicago, small moments
of Russia stack up
like apartments
until the zigzag of slippery stone 
walkways disappear into a lost horizon. 
 
I am in focus, gape-mouthed. 
I refuse to undress my part. 
 
The world is spinning – who are you? I am
going home on Shabbat but home
is a void 
burned to the ground 
with all holy histories of existence.
Our beautiful white candles burn slow 
in the faces of sweet children. 
 
             I arrived in Chicago wearing the same clothes.
             Please, let’s go home, 
             little goat. If we can find it. 

Jamie Wendt

Jamie Wendt is the author of the poetry collection Fruit of the Earth (2018) and winner of the 2019 National Federation of Press Women Book Award. Her poetry, essays, and book reviews have been published in various literary journals and anthologies, including Feminine Rising: Voices of Power and Invisibility, Lilith, Literary Mama, the Forward, Third Wednesday, and Saranac Review, among others. She holds an MFA from the University of Nebraska Omaha. She teaches high school English and lives in Chicago with her husband and two children.  https://jamiewendt.wordpress.com/