Doing A Blinky

On a very warm evening in summer
one of the rabbits in my backyard
turns over on its back, legs spread open
luxuriating in the cool, unmowed grass.
My ex-wife, friend of my current wife,
has come to visit. We sit on the back porch,
a glass of wine in hand. She says, “This is
delightful, the rabbit so expressly happy.”
I want to say, “If you had done that
level of luxuriating we’d probably still
be married,” but the wisdom that comes
with marriage prevents any acerbic observation
to be anything other than suppressed.

Next night, several rabbits are out
biting heads off some of the perennials.
Their brilliant colors overload the landscape:
scabiosa, prunella, dianthus, although we know them
as blue note, summer daze, and neon star.

My wife joins me on the back porch,
chemo drugs coursing throughout
her body, a colorful babushka, like a field
of flowers, covers her bald head.
We watch a young rabbit race around
the yard. It does a binky and then another.
A sibling catches the spirit, races
to the fence line, one binky after another,
the leaping twist for joy repeated
as the most fashionable dance turn.
Another joins in and there are three rabbits
doing binkies, never a thought of farmer McGregor
or the mangy coyote that enjoys city life.
I put an arm around my wife’s waist
as we stand watching their joy: “We’ll be doing
binkies in no time,” I say, “One binky after another.
All our days filled with binkies.”

Dale Ritterbusch is the author of Tipping Point, Lessons Learned and Far From the Temple of Heaven. He recently retired as a Professor of English, and his creative work is currently being archived in the Special Collections on the imaginative representations of the Vietnam War at La Salle University.