Rabbit In Morning
By Polly Atkin
When I wake in the morning you are waiting for me,
sat in the yard, still as a tree stump,
only your eyes and nostrils moving,
and the wind in your fur, and the rushing shadow
of leaves crashing over your curve, a green
sea of waves on shingle, combing
your sandy flanks, your reddish back.
After a pause, sure you are watched,
you stretch out into a living leap
and plunge in the pool of long cool grass.
This is the reason I won’t cut the lawn:
to see you so, only ears above water
then arcing over like a dolphin saluting
the sun, playing in the wake of the house
as it sails me on, for sheer pleasure
of throwing yourself up. I want to invite you
in, or to stay, or to not go away,
but you are a wild thing. All I can do
is believe you will keep on being the warm
vaulting life, ravelled round mine,
although I may never hold you.
