The Conversation Paused

because the goat seemed suddenly heavy, turning

silently on its rope, knotted around the hind legs.

Its head hung as a pendulum, dark and slick.

Most of the blood had drained into the basin filled

with quartered onions and glossy thumbs of garlic.

It was a metal basin, positioned on a card table

beneath the goat. The yard was dusty, hot with the smell

of charcoal. But where the goat hung in the dappled

shade of the pepper tree, it was cool. A breeze stirred

the fine green leaves. That’s when the conversation

started up again, with quiet words, about nothing in particular.