I wonder what the rabbit sees
when she passes through my backyard
garden. Catholic eyes that have canonized
nature’s wild mane
of vulcan brush and misty rain
does she think my sunflowers are just as beautiful?

and the rolling prairies of my
domesticated bend of the turnpike
are they just like the valleys she has
foraged through, beside the
shivering streams and
creepycrawling things, I
wonder if my nature is enough for her own

is the ant hill in my backyard garden still
sweet as the labor of the mountainspine
makes you sweat, admire the
dappled blueberries and
dark deer droppings
side by side, I once ate the deer’s own by accident and
I couldn’t tell the difference

but she is still just a rabbit and
has only seen the grocer’s slivered aisle of the world, she
hasn’t heard the wolf cry to the
violette moon
(god’s own thumbnail, mama used to say), or
smelled the dogwood in April
heard the mourning-song of the morning humpback while
the plowman’s humble dinner stays
salted by his moiled earthsoiled toilsweat
cried in the summershine of noontime Arizona rising and
laughed into the Amazon’s hair
stood tall on the moors, stood tall and faced the
edge of the world
kicked up the fertile dust of the African enterprise or
powdered her frosted nose alongside crystalline Mongols, no
she is just a rabbit, and I want to tell her all the secrets
Gaea has yet to murmur, low
but she is just a rabbit, and she sees my backyard garden
this wide world
and that is enough, for her own

I

       It starts out harder than you expect
but nothing can exist without an edge to plunge from
  and green is the night’s caviar

II

softer and softer you become
I can smell your quivering silence from a mile away
  I can taste you, on the very back of my tongue

III

strands lay languid and slow, linger featherlight upon your
length, soft enough to be invisible
and I brush them aside one by one
   and I covet mine hands, so much closer to thee
than the rest of me

IV

you are not perfect, far from it
every curve curdles with different curve
   and you are evenly spotted
how can I love you?


  I promise to.


sweet to taste, I taste with my eyes first
then by my hands, fouled by past lives forgotten
then by my ears, I can hear you shriek
with unworldly smile
your scent fills the flesh around my gnashing teeth
and finally, finally
I have you!
you seep lazy and warm down my chin
tumble like white water down my aching gullet
your soul weeps wearily upon my own
satiate burning desert of my desire
as I take you in
time and time again

but even after I am done with you
have discarded you, you are no use to me
anymore
somehow you are stronger
in the industry of resurrection, you become
as unyielding as iron, enough to break the hands that
once broke you, after loving you
how strange you are, creature
Hypnos, you have been cheated!
Thanatos, retreat! O Death, be not proud!
For she is living while asleep
and her laughter echoes off the edge of the world
and her spirit plunges into a salted Eden