The Hare

The hare does not belong to the rodents;

he is a species apart. Holding him firmly

against my chest, kissing his long white ears,

tasting earth on his fur and breath,

I am plunged into that white sustenance again,

where a long, fathomless calm emerges—

like a love that is futureless but binding

for a body on a gurney submerged in bright light,

as an orchard is submerged in lava—

while the hand of my brother, my companion

in nothingness, strokes our father,

but no power in the air touches us,

as one touches those one loves, as I

stroke a hare trembling in a box of straw.