Watership Down by T.L. Kryss

rabbitt

Watership Down

A dozen mean-eyed black rabbits
huddle around a maggot-grooved head of
lettuce, stripping away its leaves
in a dirty storefront window.

Cleveland’s lower east side, July 1982,
rolls on slowly, calmly, like a river
of dull poverty with bends and whirlpools
of crime, and these skidrow rabbits
fit right in,
ears slicked back like vultures
devouring a carcass of lettuce.

There is a cage of some kind, also,
with a broken door.
Flies wander in and out, but the rabbits
stay inside, as if glued there
by excrement or instinct.

Upon this window my shadow falls
and one of Pandora’s bunnies
lifts its head, looks at me impassively
through encrustedslits of eyes
and seems to say..

“I too was almost alive once.
Look what I let happen..”
and then it rolls away
into its feast.

Strange Attractors | click the image to enlargePoem taken from the chap book Strange Attractors. First edition July 1993. 200 issues. Co-producer: Mark Stueve of Old Erie Street Bookstore Cleveland, Ohio. Front cover art by Harland Ristau. Lettering by Big Web. Back cover art by Dan Nielsen. Text artwork by t.l. & Carolyn Kryss & Hilary Krzywkowsk. Co-edited by Mark Weber & Mark Stueve. Photo of t.l.kryss by mark weber 18may89. (c)1993 by Zerx Press & t.l. kryss, 5016 Inspiration Dr, SE, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87108

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