Canadian Geese, and: Two Truths and a Lie

Abstract

Canadian Geese, and: Two Truths and a Lie Stacey Balkun (bio) Canadian Geese I hate their Vs in flight and I hate them standing, wings opened wide as they balance on gross bird feet and I hate that they lay eggs and shit and I don't want to know why it's green and scuffed and scattered over every field I ever ran across as a child, uniformed in a rank jersey and shin guards; it's disgusting, why I had to run again and again across the pitch: to chase the geese off before a soccer game, to avoid the boys that were always fast, always so much faster than me, always coming closer so I'd take off across Green Acres, that rutted collection of grassy clover behind the high school, pocked and sprayed with faded chalk lines and I'd run to the tree line, underbrush colonized by the fucking geese and their nests, so aggressive [End Page 15] while I had only mucked cleats and a stick for defense, terrorized and terrified and no, I never offered anything not even a gulp of spring water or a quartered orange, just covered my ears against their awful sound, all of the terrible noise they made, honking and hissing with their dry black tongues. [End Page 16] Two Truths and a Lie I We smoked because the boys did. We smoked Marlboro Reds. We'd light our Reds because the boys did, our Bics bright, sticking out the tight back pockets of our jeans because the boys liked to look and we liked to see the boys look because the boys did and because what could we have done to stop them? The way to the gas station was a path paved in our boys, in our smoke and compact mirrors. We swung plastic bags of candy bars because the boys did and because the boys did it, we let them kiss our open mouths, our lips tinted red as KitKat wrappers, as a thank you come again, as the OPEN sign glowing in the Exxon's dark window. II We were running. We were rundown. They ran us out of our woods ~ It was a test run. The river ran dry ~ What ran through our veins was never sap, syrup, sugar-sweet like ~ I ran my mouth, it runneth over. The boy who threatened still ran his hands across me even when ~ We ran out of cash, counted coins. Sometimes it was enough ~ We ran a six-minute mile but they could still do it in less. We raced, we flew, we scrammed ~ We went running to our dads who threatened to pick a switch [End Page 17] III in the stillness that followed our fathers pruned and copsed punished and grafted us into branch and bud cambium shunned and rooted we had run and the risk was red red we burned ruin [End Page 18] Stacey Balkun Stacey Balkun is the author of Sweetbitter (Sundress 2022) & co-editor of Fiolet & Wing: An Anthology of Domestic Fabulist Poetry. Winner of the 2019 New South Writing Contest as well as Terrain.org's 10th Annual Contest, her work has appeared in Best New Poets 2018, Crab Orchard Review, The Mississippi Review, The Rumpus, & several other anthologies & journals. Stacey holds an MFA from Fresno State and teaches creative writing online at The Poetry Barn & The Loft. Copyright © 2022 Pleiades and Pleiades Press