A Blessing,

                         when my bunny
jumps up on the couch beside me
and offers her small skull
to be stroked. Often I’m reading, lost
in the cold world of Anna Karenina
or seeing The World According
to Garp. But her world is the only
world, this couch, these pillows,
the rug set down on the bamboo
flooring, her running onto the smooth
wood and sliding, like a child, 
under the kitchen table to hide,
or jumping up on a chair to survey
her queendom as she nibbles
the ratan. She turns her head
into my hand, like my husband
turns to me in bed and nuzzles in 
under my armpit until I stroke
his head, then lifting his face
to give me the last chaste kiss
of the day. He doesn’t speak
like she doesn’t speak. No need.
The eyes turn liquid, bright
with pleading, and I feel
his need. A blessing to be
needed like this, to know
the heart of another so fully.
The frailty of love. Our
helplessness in it and
before it. The largeness,
largess, of such silence.  
And then she turns away
and leaps four feet into
space, hanging on air
with the faith of all 
land creatures that the earth
will catch her.