that cage keeps it safe.
Don’t tell me how to raise my goat
don’t tell me you don’t like cages
that cage keeps it safe.
I don’t care what its singing voice sounds like
it will never be a Broadway star
it’s a goat
and anyway
that cage keeps it safe.
We can have ethical conversations all day
about its virtue as a sentient being
about its God given right to breathe free air
but that cage keeps it safe.
Do you want the goat to die
hit by a passing semi
or locked in some disease it doesn’t know
how to get proper medical care for
that cage keeps it safe.
Better dead than locked in its own filth
no
that cage keeps it safe
You actuarially think it likes Tchaikovsky
fine—
I’ll buy it a phone so it can listen to whatever it wants
you know it’s just going to eat it
the cage can’t stop it from eating its phone.
Hair Baby.
She makes hair babies in the showerpulls out the little strands
mashed into smaller balls
arranged on the wet tiles.
Brown eyes mixed with conditioner
and dirt.
Hair made out of hair
legs and arms a psychedelic
swirl of curls.
She pulls out the gray
to form its own ball in the
garbage beside the shower.
There is no catharsis in her art
no semblance of a passing
biological imperative to procreate.
There is only the enclave
the wet hot escape
the artist in her studio.
Steven J. Rogers is an avid canoesman and beardsman from Northern Wisconsin. Alas, he currently lives in Los Angeles, California. Steven is not an absolutist, so he is willing to accept the idea that there might be a hell. If there is, he’s pretty sure that it would involve writing bios. He has a BA and MFA which he’d happily trade for some beer money. To learn more about him, and his upcoming publications please visit stevenjrogers.ink.
