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Cottontail
Cottontail
Crouched at the woods’ edge
In a delicate static
Of falling snow.
Shadow thrown
By a shadow,
Inert as an infant’s tombstone
In her fateful fur.
Everything is pouring
Through the funnel of the ear.
That priceless darkness
Pearled round
A germ of pure dread!
You are watched by the eye
Of a terrified angel.
The holiness
Of her vow of silence
She can rent with a cry
That shivers the stars.
But her concealed weapons
Her hind legs
Are cocked and loaded,
And when you think of moving
She is your reflex:
That first soft bound
Of her life-and-death ballet!
Then her flawless arches
Over snow
Not red with her blood,
When she is only flight,
Only her fleeing
Through the woods’
Dark columns
Down turn after
Turn of
Her invisible labyrinth.
And likely she’ll be back
Once you are lost forever,
This action printmaker
Of the virgin drifts.
This knowing Eve
In the snowfall’s sibilance.
This femme fatale
In the silent movie of winter.
¨