The Rabbit

Scatterghost,
it can’t float away.
And the rain, everybody’s brother,
won’t help. And the wind all these days
flying like ten crazy sisters everywhere
can’t seem to do a thing. No one but me,
and my hands like fire,
to lift him to a last burrow. I wait

days, while the body opens and begins
to boil. I remember

the leaping in the moonlight, and can’t touch it,
wanting it miraculously to heal
and spring up
joyful. But finally

I do. And the day after I’ve shoveled
the earth over, in a field nearby

I find a small bird’s nest lined pale
and silvery and the chicks—

are you listening, death?—warm in the rabbit’s fur.