Duck Duck Goose

By: Gaylord Pondelroy

Canard is how the French say duck

In World War II 

When bullets flew

Canard it was, good sir, tout suite 

Or today’s the day you’re out of luck 

By: Johnathan James

To you, walking through the woods 

In the middle of spring 

After a week of heavy rains

That turned the leaf-covered earth

From soft-shoe spongy and rooty 

Into a swamp

Knee-deep and squelchy

The pair of ducks paddling around 

Are quirky

Cute

Misguided maybe

But to the un- or newly hatched tadpoles 

In the vernal pool

They are 

Horrific

Malevolent

Takers of lives 

Only just 

or still yet 

to be born

By: JJ Pandaflex

Geese used to be functional creatures

Like sheep

From whom you would harvest the unique softness of their epidermis 

Holding them by the feet

With their neck tucked under your arm

Like some demented instrument

That you would pluck 

And you could probably play

If you squeezed hard enough

And rhythmically enough

Honk honk honk 

Pluck pluck pluck

Hundreds of small soft feathers

Pluck pluck pluck

You would do it season after season 

By the thousand

Until you had enough down for a coat 

Or a pillow

Or a duvet

Or all three

And then maybe 

When your clothes were warm enough 

Your bed soft enough

You would fatten one up instead

And eat it

That is how we, as a society, used to goose

Now we just watch them

Idly in ponds

Or flying in a distant vee

Without really seeing them

Occasionally they are somewhat idyllic 

Or mildly entertaining

But mostly they are just living

Occasionally honking

Background 

Like soft white shapely cars

Driving distantly by

Up high in the sky 

By: Kirk Dumji

I bought a golden goose on Amazon

As one does

Truthfully, it’s just yellow

But it lays golden eggs

At least that’s what a lot of the reviews said

4.7 stars

That’s pretty good, right?

Sure there were some haters

There always are

But mostly they said the eggs are good and taste like regular goose eggs

Which are I guess not as good as chicken eggs

But bigger

And then one day

Maybe after a few months

Or in some cases years

Or, in the case of the one-star reviews, never

You’ll get a solid gold egg

Which will pay for all the feed and bedding

And even the coop

If you bought a coop

And of course the goose itself

Which sells for about a thousand bucks

Which is expensive I know

But some of these things lay dozens of golden eggs

One guy said he retired on his goose

Sure, some of those reviews are probably fake

But some definitely seemed legit

All told I read about a dozen reviews

Which seemed like a lot

I bought the yellow one because I wanted yellow gold

They also have white ones that make white gold

And pink ones that make rose gold

The brown ones make champagne gold

At least I think that’s what the product description says

It’s a little hard to decipher because of all the typos and bad grammar 

Translated from Chinese I assume

Some of the reviews say the eggs from the brown geese are more of an antique gold

Which appealed to me

But others say bronze

And who wants bronze when you can have gold?

So I went yellow

I ordered it on a Sunday 

And it came on Tuesday

Which is my Amazon day

So I got the one dollar digital credit

The driver rang my bell and dashed away like a thief

Or an adolescent prankster

Like they sometimes do

Leaving a large carton with a top handle 

And lots of holes

And writing on it that said things like “fragile” and “this side up” 

And “live animal”

I immediately opened the box

Not knowing what to expect 

She definitely looked pretty traumatized 

But healthy enough 

I had a coop all set up for her 

Also from Amazon

So I put her out there 

And filled up her water and food bowls

(Also from...well you get the idea)

And I waited

And waited

Days turned into weeks 

I began to wonder

Do I need a gander?

I suppose I should’ve thought of it sooner

But 0 of the 12 reviews I read mentioned it

So it just didn’t occur to me

I guess I assumed they came fertilized and ready to lay

But then I searched the reviews for gander

And sure enough

It turns out I did 

So I ordered one of those too

Also from, yes, you guessed it

Also yellow

But not magical

So not nearly as expensive

I put them in the coop together 

Which seemed to be what other people said they did

And waited some more

But still nothing came

Months passed

Spring and its promise of fertility 

Came and went

Still nothing

Maybe it’s the gander I thought

So I ordered another 

A year turned into two

And still nothing

So I got a third

I really wanted a magical gander

But they don’t seem to sell those

So I waited some more

But still nothing

Now I had four extra mouths to feed

I mean bills

I became resentful 

Golden goose 

Yeah right

As if

Not with my luck

And then one night

After a few beers

I went out to the coop

To have a talk with her

Three perfectly good ganders I said

All healthy handsome specimens

Clearly it’s you

I gave her a hard stare

She stared right back

Then she hissed at me

And that was it

Something in me snapped

And I grabbed her by her perfectly fist-lengthed neck

At first she struggled and flapped

But as I tightened my grip she slackened her movements

And I paused

I didn’t want to kill her

She was an investment after all

So I just held her

And looked at her

And she looked back at me

She started to feel heavy

And as I looked at her

I realized

She looked a bit heavy too

Maybe she was pregnant after all

Maybe a golden egg actually was in there

Had been in there for a while

And just wouldn’t come out

Didn’t complications sometimes occur?

Didn’t animals sometimes need midwives too?

Like in that movie City Slickers?

I lifted her up above my head

And looked down under

It didn’t look unusual 

But then I really didn’t know what I was looking at

So I took my free hand and started poking around

She didn’t seem to mind

Which made me wonder if maybe I was on the right track

Next thing you know I was wrist deep

It felt like pulling on a leather mitten 

That was maybe three sizes too tight 

She squirmed a little 

But did not object

So I went deeper still 

Digging for gold I thought

Like the prospectors of old

And then I thought of the sequel to City Slickers 

Which was called the Legend of Curly’s Gold

Wow I thought 

I haven’t thought about that in a very long time 

I imagined myself years later

Telling the story 

Of my first golden egg

Which would of course be followed by the stories of more eggs

And the story of my first million

Or when I bought my big yellow yacht named Honk if You’re Golden

Would I mention the part about City Slickers 2?

Or would I leave that bit out?

And then I felt something 

It was soft

But I thought maybe that’s the way

With golden eggs 

Maybe they start soft and harden after laying 

It occurred to me that it might also be something essential

That should not be pulled out

I looked deep in my goose’s eyes for some sort of sign

But they remained expressionless

So I pulled it out

This is it I thought

Here’s where it all starts going my way

But when my hand came out

And I looked

It wasn’t gold

Just the greenish

Brackish black

Of goose poop 

Yep, I thought

That’s my luck 

By: Jim Kudrik

Above snowy slope they silently stood

Quaking and shaking though not from their fear

But dampness and cold and feeling so good 

For nowhere, no nothing, could top this right here

Above yonder trees erupted a sound

A honking goose choir arranged in a V

Pointing south, down to whence they were bound

As “out of my way” said E with a heave 

His brother still winded from the great climb

Stood by and focused his eye on the sky

A few straggling geese slipped back behind

Turning tight V into disheveled Y

Just like me, Will thought, as E barreled down

Not first in line, not at home nor in class 

But life’s on my terms, not th’other way ‘round

And when I go last, that’s when I go fast

And savagely dashing over the crest

He whooped the great whoop of all future glory

Snow dusting his face, bumps bounding his chest

And though E went first, he’ll end this story

Charging fast down the hill and then faster still

The body of E now growing in size

Then closer he drew by sheer force of Will

And landed on him, right there ‘twixt his eyes

Vengeful W, exultant but jarred

E now face down, the snow stifling his cry

After running aground so painful and hard

Reared up like a bull and shouted “Will… Y!!!???”