Canyon

C. R. Resetarits

How to Kill a Goat & Other Monsters

By Saúl Hernández

Issue 44 • Fall 2021 • Poetry

2nd Place Poetry

2021 Summer Contest

Anyone who is a survivor of violence knows that the trauma such experiences leave cannot be processed in a linear fashion. “How to Kill a Goat & Other Monsters” explores how the violence we learn and experience as children can create dangerous patterns into adulthood. Filled with visceral images and striking lines, this is a remarkable poetic voice.

– Natalie Scenters-Zapico

I wish I could start with beauty. Under the snow,

my ex-boyfriend guns me down, buzzes into my ear:

Do you know what runs faster than fear?

His hum takes me to Abuelo and I

in Mexico dragging a goat out into snow.

No hoof prints behind us

only strides of a body in movement.

In the first grade, a boy sees me write his name &

mine on the last sheet of my spiral with a heart.

During recess, the boys throw my words around,

pages blow out like baby’s breath shaken from their stems.

The boys call me freak for the rest of the school year.

My ex-boyfriend’s chuckles remind me of those boys,

he breathes heat into my mouth with the edge of the gun.

I’m sorry babe. I just… You know how I get.

& he’s right. There’s a war in his hands

the way there was a war in Abuelo’s hands.

The war being survival. Survival meaning to eat.

My pomegranate jewels stain the snow crimson.

My ex-boyfriend bends down, kisses my cheek, brushes his hand

on my arm, draws circles with his fingers,

Do you forgive me?

I look at the shiny glare of my blood in the light,

it takes me back to Abuelo brushing the goat’s belly laying him down

against the snow. How Abuelo reached

into his pocket, took out his navaja.

Mira, lo tienes que hacer rápido.

Rapido. Fast. A verb of action, that’s how I once escaped death

merging into the highway an 18-wheeler didn’t see me

entering. I swerved into the emergency lane.

Let the monstrous truck pass me by.

GET UP! My ex-boyfriend kicks me

until I roll in snow sawdust. I groan the way

the goat did when Abuelo punctured its

throat.

Te digo un secreto.

You have to twist the knife

inside the throat, keep twisting it as you pull it out.

You’ll gut the vocal cords

it will not be able to shriek.

Before the goat finished bleeding out Abuelo closed its eyes told it, yo no soy un monstro.

My ex-boyfriend says, Don’t be afraid of me. I love you.

My body can only handle so much love.

When I was seven, I thought I could only find monsters under my bed.

Each night Amá checked under my bed.

After she’d wrap me in my yellow tiger blanket, Esto te protegerá.

Amá forgot to tell me not all monsters can be killed.

Somewhere in the future, snow falls again,

burns my lip like salt.

I’ll drag a goat out of my Abuelo’s farm. I’ll tell him: ¡Vete! No te quiero matar.

Because I want to end with beauty.

Saúl Hernández

Saúl Hernández is a queer writer from San Antonio, TX, and was raised by undocumented parents. Saúl has an MFA in Creative Writing from The University of Texas at El Paso. He’s the winner of the 2021 Two Sylvias Press Chapbook Prize chosen by Victoria Chang. He’s a finalist for Palette Poetry 2020 Spotlight Award and the 2019 Submerging Writer Fellowship, Fear No Lit; semi-finalists for the 2018 Francine Ringold Award for New Writers. His work is forthcoming/featured in Poet Lore, Cherry Tree, Atlanta Review, Quarterly West, and more. He’s part of the Macondo Writers Workshop. He’s the Managing Editor for Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review.