my father is tying concertina wire
around his garden which is
now all but ruined by
squirrels deer and worst
of all rabbits with cucumber
seeds stuck to their
tails I am an apex predator my father is
an apex predator god makes
us in pairs my mother searches the lawn
for four-leaf clovers pinning them
to a scrapbook pinning
moments to time she gives each clover
a name Buck Comes Onto Porch and
Hospital Note From Kaveh while
she makes tea inside I search
the house for a lighter and can’t
even find matches what I miss most
about winter is the brightness of
winter summer’s all foggy and
wet my mother hovers in
the kitchen like a strange tune she is out
of saffron and has no money
for more she weeps over her
bleach-white rice until my
father comes in cracks an egg
over the plate bursts
the yolk says see says yellow my mother
smiles so big and sad she wrinkles into
the future where my eyes
are yellow again maybe from the yolk
maybe something else my fur is coming in
so thick my mother would squeal
with pride if she could see it when she
was pregnant I kicked so hard so
often she could barely
sleep staying up all
night she thought she must
be full of bunnies
Copyright © 2019 by Kaveh Akbar. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on May 2, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets.