Animals: “goat stories” by Shabnam Piryaei
goat stories
Once upon a time, a grandmother sewed a pelt quilt. Racoon, goat, squirrel, one iguana and two snakes. A menagerie of quietude. She sewed every night for a year and when she was ready to die, she carried the quilt in the back of a mule-drawn wagon to where her children lived. She asked them to all gather on the floor of one room, lying down next to each other. She demanded no assistance. She dragged the quilt out from the wagon and over the bodies of her children, grandchildren, sons-in-law, daughters-in-law, and cats and dogs. Once they were all covered with the animal skin, she walked back out, and rode her mule home.
Once upon a time, a girl, unwashed and stoic, walked out of a splintery, faded barn, a small goat trailing her. The sun was merciless and sweat streamed from her temples. She walked straight to the pig pen where one hog lay in the mud panting from heat. She took off all her clothes and lay flat on her back in the mud, beside the hog. She grabbed fistfuls of mud and rubbed them all over her skin. The goat leapt into a smaller mud puddle nearby and rolled around. Nobody made a sound.
Once upon a time, a boy dressed in a goat suit slipped on a loose boulder and fell down the side of a mountain, breaking his ankle. Soaked with sweat, he dragged his body out of the costume and called for help.
Once upon a time, a roof collapsed on a petting zoo, and the wailing of the baby goat could be heard in people’s dreams for months.
About Shabnam Piryaei
Shabnam Piryaei wants everyone to remember how powerful and luminous they are. She is an award-winning poet, filmmaker, and artist. She’s written five books: all children. (Diode Editions, 2024), Nothing is Wasted (The Operating System, 2017), Forward (Museum Books, 2014), Ode to Fragile (Plain View Press, 2010), and a fifth, secret book. She’s written and directed films that have screened at film festivals, art galleries, and public installations around the world. Her documentary film No Separate Survival won Best Documentary Film from San Diego Film Week. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature and teaches at San Francisco State University. She is the founder and curator of the online art and interview journal MUSEUM, and the founder of Feather Portal Healing. Her art has been exhibited at the Unlike Art Gallery, Elysium Art Gallery, New Gallery London, Youyou Gallery, Jotta, Galleria Perelà, Kala Art Institute, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. You can experience more of her work at www.shabnampiryaei.com.