TO THE RABBIT I KILLED ON THE ROAD THIS MORNING
When I am dead as you are dead,
struck down by cancer cells rampaging
in my bladder or my pancreas,
in my lymph nodes or my bones or both,
or by my left anterior descending coronary
artery strangling my heart to death,
or by a driver driving too fast, too
carelessly on a narrow country road to see
me in time to swerve away, and if
my spirit should meet your spirit,
I tell you now it will submit.
My spirit will do anything yours will
ask of it to satisfy what justice might
be there in such a place of mingled
spirits. Except one thing. One thing
your spirit must not ask of mine,
even if it is the only price it must exact.
My spirit must refuse to change
places with your spirit. My spirit
must forever be that of homo sapiens
sapiens, as yours must be forever
that of sylvilagus cuniculus,
and this will not be my human hubris
but rather its greater punishment,
my wise spirit forever thinking
about your wedge-toothed, forest-
dwelling spirit. To forever envy it.
BARBED WIRE
Twisted, broken, rusted to the dark brown
of the oak leaves, it is almost benign.
In places it looks like any other vine
growing around the tree trunks,
dangling loose from low branches,
and even the barbs plaited to the strands
of wire are like leaves just budding.
The deer cross the road through the gaps
which they likely made themselves
over years or widened gaps they found,
trampling down the wire, tearing it loose
from the old cedar posts or pulling the posts
altogether out of the ground. I too cross
the road at the gaps, even though I could
anywhere I pleased, even over the barbed wire.
I do it for the deer.
CORN
It grows fast but not
fast enough to suit the crows
calling from the sycamores
and tall oaks between
the road and the cornfield:
Corn. Corn. Corn.
THE LAMBS
Already marked
for death by circles
of day-glo green
sprayed on their fresh
woolen haunches,
they gallop in the muddy
yard of the barn, in pairs,
or singly, next to the fence
or the water trough.
Like strange, miniature horses,
they buck and jump straight up
as though saddle-strapped,
and their shadows,
which are the ghosts
of strange, giant horses,
are already across the road,
making for the open meadow.
J. R. Solonche’s Selected Poems 2002-2021 was published by Serving House Books and nominated for the National Book Award. It’s available here.
Learn more about J. R. on our Contributors’ Page.
(Photo: Fredrick Walloe/flickr.com/ CC BY 2.0)
- Two Poems by J. R. Solonche - January 26, 2023
- Three Poems by J. R. Solonche - September 2, 2021