Poem February 20, 2017 Issue

On goats, serpents, and sheep

Lona Ingwerson

“What was I thinking?” I asked myself.
I’d let my goat be gotten.
I’d been taken in
By the serpent’s grin
And now I’m feeling rotten.

So what do I do, I’m wondering—
Just accept the sneaky suggestion?
Can I still deny it or is it too late
To fight, to oppose, to repudiate,
To refuse to give in to oppression?

It’s never too late to refuse the bait,
To turn a lie around,
To reject what is not,
Let my goat be not got,
Having been a lost sheep, to be found.

—Lona Ingwerson

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