January 2023
Author's Note: Happy new year, everybody! May this year be one of positive growth and experience for all. As we begin this new year, I want to honor our collective Mother and her power. Caveat Lepus appeared in Literary Veganism and To My Neighbor With the Plastic Lawn was included in Redshift 3.
Caveat Lepus
Rabbit pretends
not to look
but sees me,
stands so still
in the grass
watching
with round eye
beneath
the columns
of its ears.
No need to flee;
I pose no
present danger.
I look behind
to where it stands
still as granite,
watching.
I am no predator,
true. But rabbit,
oh rabbit,
you have no idea.
To My Neighbor With the Plastic Lawn
Your plastic grass is no match
for the Bermuda grass that woke
from memory’s sleep, found purchase
in the lip of soil that edged around
the plastic seam and now climbs over
what is fake and clean, and spills
dry spindles in a swell of dusty green.
Your plastic grass can’t smother
all that sleeps inside the soil
but even so your plastic grass
will one day have the last
and loneliest laugh: when all of us
have gone to dust your plastic lawn
will rise in wiry strings from the sod.
triumphant and immortal as a god.
©2023 Tamara Madison
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