Moon Rabbit Mother Speaks

by Maria Picone

Darling, that is a sun and you are a moon

rabbit. Look at its blocky teeth, its bulbous head.

It might be cute now, kawaii da na?

but in ten years it will be solarized

in arrogance, convinced every good

tiger that happens to it is birthright

and every bad tiger that happens, didn’t happen.

It will burn you up until you look

like the dark one it imagines you, shadows

blotting themselves out of the cosmic

register. Even if you believe all rabbits

are equal, you cannot throw your

self into the fire. I learned myself his line,

traces, traces of quickened hearts, has burst

in the blood. How you are the same until

you hop to the same orchard, contest the same

fruit. Amai no ni, nigai aji ni naru. His lips mouth

words they do not pay

breath. I know he mocks the shape of your lamb

-ent eyes, the quiet woodland of your non-white

pelt. Kakkoii dakedo, with time he will harden

into an idol of hatred: molten, brazen—

and his eclipse will come. White rabbit’s luck will

turn. Take back the silence of the summer orchard;

let him pass overhead again and again

and again until he burns

himself down.