Thanksgiving Feast
Poetry by Adrian Southin
Outside the kitchen window,
a pair of crows deconstruct a rabbit,
taking small pieces of flesh as if from a platter.
I let the plate in my hand float to the bottom of the sink.
Five thrushes pick the grass.
Two squirrels look on
their fur the same oil-stain onyx of the crow’s coat.
A shovel at the back door,
a thin colourless jacket,
blue gardening gloves,
I approach the scavenged corpse.
The carrion birds flee
the crunch of my hiking boots
on the spiky yellow grass.
The crows cleaned fast—
the rabbit’s legs and spine near bare,
meat clinging as if left out
for a begging dog.
The intestines, bladder, kidneys: gone.
Empty chest cavity and an eye socket
pool with blood
already cooled by the sweet autumn air
brushing my
fingers working the shovel through
the rooted dirt.
Pink worms writhe.
I pick up the rabbit
as a doctor might a newborn
relaxing its weight in my hands,
the naked leg bones thinner than the little finger supporting them.
I place the corpse in the black earth,
like an offering to an unnamed harvest god.
My knees are wet and dark from the October soil.
I pluck scraps of beige fur, organs
from the grass.
I spread dirt over the grave,
the place in our garden where cucumbers never sprouted.
My eyes and hands tracing
the silhouette of the rabbit
until the earth is smooth, bare.