Cut in half
muscle by muscle
struck at once
as with a saw
passing in a mile-long arc
(balls to fall,
arms, eyes, and nostrils
flared out
for the graceless
collapse backward
from the facing mirror
sudden bulges
protuberances not fat
but insides wanting out),

my back is unhinged
pelvis high, and such
hot severance
shall mark my demise
whatever knife or stitch
whatever threads of meat
and gristle still depend
when the upper half
shall lift off, trailing
guts and lungs
....................as though
some child were jerked
through the traffic
before reluctant
cars or trucks
should squeeze to death
between the open
air on one side
and on the other
slowing steel
come not late enough
behind blowing horns.

And if the death
should rise
otherwise
than in my mind
as in my rear-
view mirror
across the wide
parking lot
as my child
comes back to me
delivered again
of the dentist,
trinkets and new metal
in his head.

I would dream forever
the smooth and bobbing
car which came
from miles away
to meet us here,

and I would scorn
or cry as faith
old haunts
of groceries flung
at impact
and faltering in the air
for their scant mercy
the last strict inch
above blistering asphalt,

late warnings
yet caught in the breath
no time yet elapsed
(how long a time it is!)
for their unending
lamentations.

--Robert W. Hill
Billy Goat, 1978,
repr. Teaching English in the Two-Year Colleges 1979