Larrea

Moved the jackrabbit
from the road, laid her under
a bush. Land of little

shade, we do what we can.

One sport is crying while driving.
Another the daffodil light.

All the mornings I’ve found you,
been found.

*

I’m just eating a sandwich with Sarah,
when the wind picks up, and her hair

becomes another,

crucial, planet. Night running off
with itself. Away

from your star. So soft
is the fur

of the currently—
 

Credit

Copyright © 2016 by Louise Mathias. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on January 15, 2016, by the Academy of American Poets.

About this Poem

“I’m not in the habit of picking up dead animals, but when I came across a black-tailed jackrabbit one day while driving through the Mojave National Preserve, I was busy wrestling with one of my more persistent delusions—that I could somehow untie the knot of love and grief if I just tried hard enough. Like an angel come to disabuse me of this notion, she was heavier than I expected, still slightly warm, and almost entirely intact—not a drop of blood on my white shirt after.”
—Louise Mathias