The Rabbit Lies

The rabbit lies sprawled out full length in its hutch

sleeping, head flopped against the door’s wire mesh

so squares of white fur push through and do not move.

He could be dead. It is the still of slumber and so slow

breathing as he rests yet again. What it is, I know, is

age – this rabbit’s simply too goddamn old and lazy

which is obvious from those times where we must rouse

him to clip encrusted or messy faeces from his back end.

Yet he can look serene. And it is, yes, in the long calm

of his lying there that he also looks endearingly sweet,

so when I give as reward for this recumbent lie

an edible treat, it drops from the fumbling of his

eager but less assured lunge, and I too grope to find,

keen to act like helping another old man across a street.