A rabbit in the wild can
patch into dry grass, sand
into a clump, harden
to rock. A rabbit will fold
her ears flat and wait
for a fox, or us, to pass.
We won’t see it, won’t
know a thing.
Female rabbits will
reabsorb the soft
tissues of foetuses
into their bodies if
a hard winter’s
coming. No
litter.
A rabbit on a road can
freeze or bolt.
A rabbit in a yard will
graze, will
(as every farmer in my family
tells me) eat a kitchen
garden to stubble.
A rabbit can
lie like garbage
on the roadside, a wrapper
flattened and flung by
the rubber
roar of petroleum
fire, the monster
wheeling past fields and
pines, past warrens
hidden from the road
named Conservation Drive,
the crash that makes
trash
we drive by. We
won’t know a thing.
♦
Tanis MacDonald is the author of three books of poetry and is working on the #FaunaWatch manuscript in Waterloo, Ontario, where she is Associate Professor in the Department of English and Film Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University.
(Photos by Tanis MacDonald)
♦♦♦
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