My Childhood Crush

Not as gorgeous as swans
Boosting longer life to swans
Not born a beauty
Yet enjoy a beatific long life
With the help from humans
They appear peaceful and intact.
Perfect or not, every single geese
Unique in their own way
Express the felicity that surrounds them
 
One came close, honking his joy,
I, five-year-old in pigtails
Shrilled with laughter
My hand outstretched
My childhood halcyon days
replete with geese and their pitter-patter
This one was no different
Waddling happily, no mal-intent, wanting
The cabbage my palm confiddently held.
 
I have no fear of this majestic king
with plumage white and yellow
It has nibbled from my hand before
just two weeks ago in fact.
I prepared for the tingling
But got a snap,
An angry honk, and a sharp cry;
warm life liquid oozed forth
staining the cabbage, the mud, the memory.
 
How an innocent honk
Sends shivers down my spine
The kingly goose reigns down again.