Remember when we killed the goat? For three nights before then it made goat-sounds and we pretended not to hear. But we did. The day we were supposed to kill it Father took a metal pipe and hit it across its left cheek. It folded its knees and closed its eyes as if it were praying, as if it knew. Father couldn’t hit it again. You kill it, he said to me. And I did. I took a funnel and stuck it in its mouth and forced two bottles of vinegar down its throat, pale sour blood gushing from its jaw unto dry grass, my eyes closed, you looking away, saying stop, stop, stop. When I was done it got up and took two steps and swayed and fell on its side. Then Father letting go of the rope, Father reaching for its throat. Father with a knife. Then the final twitch. The waiting fire. Eyes like black seeds.