The rabbit in my dream

appeared at the end

of my parents’ driveway,

human sized, grey—

her eyes fixed on me.

I used to drag the trash cans

there at dusk, the wheels

spitting gravel at the lilac trees.

Our last spring as a family,

we would take turns

walking our mother

up the stairs, her purple feet

nestled in the carpet.

And our cat found that

litter of rabbits, and carried

each kit to our doorway,

like a mother. How did she

know we liked them alive?

Each beating puff blind,

breathing peacefully,

unlike our mother dying

in her bed upstairs. We

walked each back to the nest

by the broken fence.

Mother rabbits are absent

most of the time. They only

visit once a day. What I’m

trying to say is—the rabbit

in my dream, was visiting me.

My eyes opened, then closed.

I was back in the nest of my brain.