POEM FOR A KID

He was just a kid: a white baby goat
that we nicknamed the “escape goat”.
When you were small, he got through

the fence of the garden of the holiday house
where we were staying and made
a break for freedom down the road.

He realized soon enough that freedom
was not all it was cracked up to be,
and missed his mother and bleated

on the road until we rescued him.
Young boys when they grow to be men
will remember such epiphanies as this,

should they find themselves alone
on a quiet country road in France,
their mothers light years out of earshot.