Tabernacle Series #3 - the one about the goat

Glassy eye, the head stares back at me.
Dead, dead, dead,
Blood covers the dirt around us,
stench of bowel and blood combine,
a grassy smell,
the contents of it's stomach, spilled.

I sit with the goat,
it's body slowly cooling,
warm belly blood attracting flies.

That first spurt surprised me,
violet spray of pumping heart,
staining my clothes,
distracting me from the nanny's screams.

That's no way to die;
a knife to the gullet,
for a goat who did nothing wrong.
Well, except for eating what it oughtn't.

I'm worn out,
full spent from the exercise of courage I'd summoned
for my first kill.
Not yet repeated often enough to feel normal.

She came to me willingly,
thinking I had food,
not expecting the betrayal of a wrench of the head,
blade to the neck.

She'd butted up against my legs,
like a toddler trying to hide in mummy's skirts.

She's a carcass now, a goat no more,
her life-blood drying red to brown,
gritty on my dirtied skin.

Meat and fur,
gelatin and teeth.

Scapegoat,
scapegrace,
welcomed in.