Sphere

You can’t imagine the goats who were my only friends as a child how they tore at my underwear, hitting their heads into my legs, playfully throwing me into the air. How their snores rattled the night. How their milk tasted sweet and thick and altogether wild. How they followed me through the orchard and up into the rocky fields above and ate blueberries through the afternoon. How at twilight I’d walk down, a hand on two goats’ backs and they’d talk me all the way down. How many times I was beaten about the face and shoulders and back. How the goat smell kept me from properly experiencing food. How I crept out to the goats in the night and slept very well there the goats licking my bruises as though I were sacred and wounded and divine.