ghazal

ghazal

so today the assignment was okay
write me a gazelle i mean
ghazal
excuse me every time he says that word i think
back to when
i was sixteen and my constant dream
was going to africa
where every morning when i would wake up
on the savannah there would be these herds of ghazals
pressing all around but so gentle i never
thought they could be mean or hurt me even
by accident
but later on i decided
the more practical thing was to apply to be
an airline "stewardess"
we called them back then but mama put her foot
down on that one saying
i will not have you ruin your life fucking pilots that won't never
marry you anyway
because you will find out soon enough
that all the good pilots are already
married and live
in the suburbs of savannah georgia and never
spend any time with their families
at all no they
all the time are out hunting when
they are home hunting
poor helpless canadian geese that don't have an inkling
of what lies in wait for them
just like you you damn fool i can't wait to see the day
when all my intuitions turn out to be true
but by that time
i guess i'll be dead and gone if you don't go
before me like your brother did
so you better listen which is why i guess
i ended up
like i did working at the strawberry
farm where every year
off by the yadkin river you can see the geese flying over
and hear the hunters
shooting off their shotguns like crazy to kill something they almost
never eat only sometimes they will stuff one
like a trophy like it was a gazelle or something instead of
just a goose