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Jo Going

Sunflowers in Italia Full up in a field of endless yellow, row upon row upon row, a choreography bright in the sun. Have you seen them, one foot fixed in the earth, the other, invisible, paddling around  and around, a preening tarantella “Girasole,” we call them, which means, such poetry, “turn sun,” so you wonder: does the sun  turn the flowers, or the flowers  turn the sun?

The Birth of the Sun

Jo Going

William Wikstrom

Sierra Golden

Self-Portrait with Goats The man with goats appears most days in the neighbor’s field where he lets three tobacco brown animals graze. I don’t know if he can see me at the window, especially the evening it rains until the gutters flood and the glass panes paint the meadow   in Monet smears. Three gangly goats scud across the field toward the gate the man with goats left open. At midnight I find them knee-deep in mud   by the carrots and kale and I scream my scars until I can’t and I laugh and the rain soaks my clothes until my nipples and thighs are cut clear as stars   on a cloudless night and I see myself, see everything the man without goats can’t.