Goose

I go for a run that morning

to shake off the dust of worry

that has settled in a fine layer

overnight

flipping through mental files of bills and checks,

the weight of legal documents,

how I would remodel a bathroom

with a claw foot tub

in a house I don’t yet own.

I run easily without the weight of the stroller

some flakes chipping off and flying behind me,

others sticking obstinately

as I move through a crowd of prattling geese.

One catches my attention

with what looks like a limp worm dangling from its face

that I soon realize is its tongue

shards of shattered beak left gaping around it.

I listen first to the revolted shudder that tells me to flee,

until that deeper spot tells me to go back

and be human.

That goose can’t do its work like that

and the grace of the rest of the geese,

who are busily gossiping in what I imagine to be

the comical accents of British butlers

while they mindlessly go about their work,

and the silly ease with which they rip up and nibble grass and seed

in their sleek, black beaks

only exaggerates the seemingly terminal condition of their luckless mate.

yet,

I watch as he waddles on able feet

with a heart that still needs beating

and dips his head unnaturally,

scooping what he can catch in the cracked remains of his face

and tips his head back to urge the pieces down his throat

past the flaccid tongue that only complicates the job,

and I am ashamed.

For to have worries is the work of the living

for those of us so fortuitously intact.