David James Brock

Big Goose

The sidewalk is a lush scene from middle-earth, only instead of rolling hills and thick fog, it’s goose shit squashing beneath my boots. I’m Giant Gonzales crushing tiny hills on the ten-minute walk to class between the two campuses.
My mouth tastes like peppermint gum and fights with the zoo of 2:00 a.m. rye nightcaps. Lately, I’ve noticed the late-night drinks infiltrating my heart veins. My left arm. A new numbness in my fingertips. I mean to do something about it, and I promise that I will as I step in another pile of shit.
I’m not alone here. Big Goose approaches. “Hi there,” I say to Big Goose. “Whoa there.” It’s close, too close, bellying up. I can smell the wetness of feathers. “Please, back up.” I wonder if birds have polite behaviour.
I hold my hands up, place the side satchel holding my laptop and a dozen student papers up like a shield. I tippy toe, wave my arms, shoo, but Big Goose isn’t afraid. “Back up!” My voice cracks, and I raise my arms, mimicking something I think has to do with encountering bears.
“fear me,” I scream and imagine it pecking me. And then it pecks me. Flat peck. These things never happen (a therapist once told me about catastrophizing): a catastrophic vision come true. This nick in my neck opens, unlocks in the shape of a hollowed-out canoe seen bird’s eye.
From here on, I lose breath. Pssssssh. It sounds like that. Pssssssh. Like, keep it quiet, Brock. Pssssssh. A last breath in bay-water blue. My avalanche. There’s a crudeness of drowning in breath via breathable air. Hush. This pssssssh and a new type of cold.
Did I make a good life of this body? I remember a warm bath holding me. Long hours alone in sea-foam bubbles. Prune hands. I remember loving you wrong. I want you to be safe. Big Goose pecks me again, the other side of my neck. My meat yawns off its bone frame. Some bits chip, like velvet off caribou antlers. Did I know anything about caribous in this life? No way. Why should I be thinking of that animal now? I’d seen a caribou on coins. Did quarters flake when the plate was made cheaply?
Don’t waste thoughts. Think of friends. A guy I drank rum with will give me a second of silence at his next table and make the story about me more about him. I am second of silence and a head rush. I hear helium filling balloons at a party. I could float. Pssssssh. The mouth in my neck is an open set bear trap. The skin slides down. Cause of death: supernatural causes [Big Goose].
The costume slumps. Useless muscles. Abandoned veins scream in the open air. Snake jacket spurned. I am the snake. Party clothes left in a ditch at dawn. Shape-shifter. Body horror. The grass will crack a joke at my carcass of plaid and acid wash. I was always behind a trend. I was stubborn enough to write poems with themes like This is who I am, world. I watched a friend die on a barstool. Cause of death: sepsis [vodka shots].
Sometimes, I would weep on the couch, watch tennis on TV. There were forest fires on the news and peaceful birds escaping. In all the documentaries on predators and prey, I never once saw a big goose bring down my body.
I will be a thing that isn’t here. I wish my heartbeat had more knowledge of my skin. Why didn’t I see this one coming?
Big Goose flips me on its bill. Rocks my skin overhead, making a cape of my epidermis. The rest of me is left for the marching ants. We fly. Big Goose with skincape. Let’s soar from head to toe, Big Goose! I am your third wing now. Head to tail feather. Fly! Look funny from the outside.
Will my picture be propped up on a Muskoka cottage mantle in memoriam? We were all so buff? What creature am I now?
The forgetting is now now. The Arctic: never saw. I stayed south: winter. The sidewalk. Ears grow and sun pops. We, an airplane with eyes. Hide this from family. I’m losing names in our magic.
The clouds are on my constellation of back moles. I’ll miss class today. I think I was a prof. The students will say, “You’ll never believe what happened to our prof. A big goose stole his skin.”
There was a safe place. Wood stove. Blanket forts. Wrestling magazines. Country tuneage. There was a basement bedroom without windows: the whale belly. And the wood stove heats up. And the belly is warm. And can I force the words I love you one last time?
Me and Big Goose, a creature we’ve become, might have loved you better.
Me and Big Goose. Creature. We loved. We love. Creature. Shit.