a paper bed, a paper gown* by thewilderhen

[Quixilated]

a paper bed, a paper gown

My wife and I raise meat rabbits.
Someone on a TV show
said, “Bunnies. They just want to die.”
It’s true.

We haven’t gotten to the meat
part yet.

13 live births, 2 still,
1 eaten by its mother
(they do it when they’re poorly),
then 1 could not nurse,
2 dead in the night,
3 when they were weaned.

Each body gets a shroud 
of paper towel,
and I think how death
can tell a story.

How at 27 I worked
a summer in hospice
and heard a man cry,
I’m dying as if warning
the living to get out 
of his way.

Or how my friend died
at 13 in a house fire,
shielding her little sister’s
bones.

Or how last Tuesday 
the MRI sang for me
again, one half
of a waulking song, a
call-and-response,
clouds painted on
the ceiling for the 
claustrophobics,
calling up the weeping
range of the sky.

There is no response.
The rabbits are both
living and dying with eyes 
like coal. I wrap them
in paper and nothing
will come undone.


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Original thread can be found here.