James Tate

Smart

I had a theory for a while
but I had to let it go.
It was wasting away in captivity.
It sat there in the cage of my brain
and wouldn't eat.
When i had first trapped it
it was beautiful and wild and amused everyone.
"Too much attention," the vet said.
It wasn't cut out for that kind of life.
But when I tried to imagine
letting it go back to the craggy, brambly,
uproarious and vehement landscape
of its origins, I realized
I had sucked its lifeblood from it.
It stood no chance
of survival against those beasts
never glimpsed by man,
never photographed,
never tagged,
spooks with pigtails
lumbering through love songs
in lunatic lunchrooms,
and then dueling with cowboy snowbirds.
My little nothing had forgotten its tricks.
So I let it loose in a city park
whereupon a desperate pensioner
immediately recognized it
as the golden goose
or some such rubbish.