They were always there.
Their ebony necks craning like
slithering snakes, their waxy, putrid feathers
drifting in the breeze like they came from the trees above
like they were supposed to be there.
They were always there and yet
they never belonged.
The soft green landscape, the blue-dyed
ponds, the synthetic sand,
trampled by three-toed webbed feet,
littered by the dirty green remains of their stingy
digestive tracts, and when they open their hard, shiny
beaks, a sound so guttural, so feral,
rips across their pointy red tongues.

I came across a goose while golfing today.
I watched in greedy fascination
as it unfolded its bronze wings and
flew away into the backdrop of a vibrant blue sky.