Breathing Fiction (For Safety Reasons) [by leigh wells]

with a goat in the trunk, it’s ankles bound with love

who is to say what we can and cannot do

halfway between one mountain and the next hairstyle

there’s a life’s work fermenting sweetly

drying in the sun

hanging foolishly by borrowed ankles

empty mouth, inches from dusty ground

            why line up at all

            there’s nothing left to breath

            but fiction

            wearing its everyday clothes

            patched and fading

(When it was done, we put the insides back,

wrapped in its own fur for safekeeping.)