Matthew Isaac Sobin
The Bereft Makes an Offer to the Goat Queen
Wearing a navy blue pinstripe suit, unpracticed—really uninitiated—in all forms of animal husbandry, you herald entry to a goat enclosure proffering a provender of yellow grass, which is everywhere at hand, or hoof. Three doe turn their noses at you, though their mouths are full of the same yellow grass. You smartly move on, noticing the goats have moved on to a large, fallen eucalyptus branch. Seeing their enthusiasm, you assist the cloven quorum by crafting a tidy assemblage of the choicest brittle twigs from the tips of the eucalyptus, and present this to the flock queen.
Consider their worldliness: these goats who watch cartoons in the morning; who rise late when the sun is already high. Aghast, you recognize her razor wit; she is well-versed in skepticism, and like a shadow passing into tempered disdain, levels a stream of urine onto her breakfast table. You were supposed to contain multitudes like the goatherds who beseeched her favor and that of her foremothers. But you are bereft, and the flock knows.
Rare Specimen
I was out with the boys playing disc golf in a park in Oakland. In the middle of the third hole, one of them said, “Check out the cork tree.” I thought I had misheard. I’d never seen a cork tree before. To be honest, I didn’t know cork had its own tree. I thought it was like the gefilte fish of wood. It looked, I suppose, how a cork tree should look: miniature corks cobbled together piece by piece into a trunk. When I touched the tree its flesh was soft and malleable, just like cork. I was a believer. The tree stood slanted, bent at a low, precarious angle to the ground. All around us were redwoods, eucalyptus, and towering oak trees. “Are there others?” I asked. The cork tree expert said, “This is the only one I’ve ever seen.” The rest of the guys agreed. It seemed absurd to continue slinging a disc near this rare specimen. We decided the best thing was to build a fence to protect the cork tree. Someone pulled out an ax. We took turns chopping until an oak crashed through the third and fourth hole fairways. We erected a picket fence around the cork tree. As the sun set, we painted a sign that said, “Keep Out: This Cork Tree is a Rare Specimen.”
Crime Stopper
My father and I stopped speaking for one year. It was a mutual decision. We didn’t discuss it, of course. In the evenings, I began craving crime procedurals, like Law & Order and Blue Bloods. This is how I knew my father would still think about me. So, I wasn’t worried. Sometimes I imagined we’d watch the shows together. One night I paused NCIS and decided to join the police academy. Once I became a detective, unraveling mysteries, my father would surely speak to me again. After graduation, I went to the streets. I solved cold cases, interviewing witnesses, and documenting clues in my marble notebook. Whenever I solved a particularly heinous murder, I’d decompress by watching actors solve murders on television. Sometimes I’d hear the phone ring when an episode ended. I always answered the call.
Matthew Isaac Sobin's (he/him) first book was the science fiction novella, The Last Machine in the Solar System. His poems are in or forthcoming from The Lumiere Review, South Florida Poetry Journal, Midway Journal, Orange Blossom Review, Ghost City Review, and MAYDAY Magazine. He received an MFA from California College of the Arts. You may find him selling books at Books on B in Hayward, California. He lives and writes with his wife and two dogs. https://twitter.com/WriterMattIsaac
