Brer Rabbit in Love

The way your dogs bay,

I will make you love me like that.

High-pitched

& harsh with need.

In love I am soft

as the dust that fills foot tracks.

I gently gnaw a field of butter

lettuce to its bone.

Where you are mighty

I multiple under lattices of rough roots, grow

spots graciously. Burrow

discreet under henhouse & porch stoop.

I home

under your whiskers, your knickers, the cloudless day

as you sweat.

My fur as soft as grasses

you sway away from the path. You move

like a sure-footed prayer.

Your belly

bottomless & too full of stories

of pulling the thick of me

from between your teeth.

Out of sight & ever present, as I slide

under the crop roots & swamp hollows,

your panicles of rice weigh the stems into bows.