Today's poem is by Chera Hammons

When the Cottontail Doesn't Return
       

In a fur-lined nest under wreaths of lamb's ears,
an unmoving rabbit kit shrinks into bone,

having given up hours ago. The kit I take from the dog
that has discovered the nest suffers. I tell my husband

it would be quicker to let the dog keep it.
By quicker, I mean the measure of the young heart's hurt.

I don't mean to sound so harsh.
The kit I find huddled against the house,

eyes sealed shut, trembling, might yet be saved.
Tell me what sort of world this is:

to move into light for the first time
and find it contains the devouring mouth.

Not knowing that there can ever be more than this.
Then the strange, unsteady lift, the glass dropper

of unfamiliar milk pressed against the gums,
the voice, like those it will fear one day, saying "Live."

And again I ask: "What could this mean?"
And hope the answer is something remarkable.

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Copyright © 2024 Chera Hammons All rights reserved
from The Southern Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission