THE RABBIT
after Chaim Soutine’s Rabbit
In Paris, beneath the lush rooms
of Waterlilies,
the rabbit hangs by its feet,
eye dilated and white,
dead-eye, but whose brown
fur feathers to be touched
and then the copper jug
suspended beside its back,
orange bulb blooming,
full of wine, perhaps,
or stale water.
Hunting trophy
still life, remnant of moments—
of paw in dirt, view of grass,
sound vibrating in ears,
punctured flesh and torpid light
before the aperture closed.
One of a series of dead rabbits
and hares, done after fish and forks
and light-taut glass. A series of darkened
walls hung with luminous fur,
with jugs and a wisp, perhaps, of a flower.
It is the suspension of fear—
the mouth forever frozen open,
the suggestion of ribs that enclose
the stilled heart, one ear
dotted with the orange-red of the jug
to balance the composition,
to appease the eye’s need for symmetry,
to provide some resolution to the rabbit
hung, forever now, beyond death.
published in The Ekphrastic Review, February, 2019
THE CALL
Reckless brother,
you inhabit
blank, damp
winter
a beardless airy
beauty who moves
along my spine
but through what space
does your thought
flicker, lost light
to my ear?
published in The Flexible Persona, Spring 2019
PERSISTENCE
He called her genius. She turned to snow
and drifted against his house. To tuck away,
suckle the babe, irrational, in her arms
was what she thought, what she ate,
what she heard heroines must do. Genius,
but her effort told her otherwise—
though she could feel the switch
on a bull’s back, and the last twitch
of a dying girl, she could draw no conclusions.
She wished for the slow descent of a seahorse,
or the timely arrival of a mad tale to her head—
Time, inordinate. Peaceful. His patio glittering with chairs.
published in Cutbank, Spring 1998