We have rabbits
By Marge Piercy
When I was a little girl
my brother won two bunnies
in a poker game. I have no idea
why a player was betting bunnies.
At the time it seemed logical.
They lived in the basement.
My cat liked to chase them round
and round the furnace and up
stairs to the kitchen door. Good
exercise, my brother said.
But they chewed through a cord
from the washing machine, off
power tools on my father’s work
bench. They had to go. We drove
them to Lucy and Lon’s tenant farm
where they multiplied endlessly.
Was that the wrong thing to do?
Now are we punished with hoards?
They gobble sprouting pole beans
and now we have none to eat
or freeze. They eat the pepper
plants, bell, frying and cayennes.
They devour eggplants. They
eat and eat. We don’t frighten
them. One snarled at me, snacking
on my Brussels sprout bushes.
Right now and every day they
are out there chewing through
our hours and days of planting,
tending, watering. No harvest
for us. We are their restaurant,
larder, kitchen. We spray cougar
urine, hot pepper. We fence but
they dig like trenchers. I can only say:
We have rabbits. And not much else.
Copyright © 2020 by Marge Piercy.