Rabbit

Tonight, the air is green with clover, hay, and little clumps of grasses on the breeze, unsettled dirt, the dusty mysteries of rabbits tunnelling the dark. They stray into the meadow, sniff the wind—bouquet of violets. They hop in twos and threes, their shadows cotton-tailed. Or else they freeze when something feathered screeches far away. They stand like tufted stones. But now the night goes soft and jasmine-sweet again. A scent of petals presses to their fur. There’s fruit to eat. There is the skittering delight of digging into earth, the sediment of dreams perfumed with carrot-top and root. – Jehanne Dubrow