(content) a paper bed, a paper gown (farming meat animals, discussion of death, MRIs)

[busker]

My wife and I raise meat rabbits.
Someone on a TV show
said, “Bunnies. They just want to die”
and it’s true.

We haven’t gotten to the meat
part yet.

13 live births, 2 still
1 eaten by its mother
(they do that when they’re poorly)
then 1 could not nurse
2 dead in the night
3 when they were weaned.

Each body gets a shroud
of paper towel
and I think how death
can tell a story.

Like how at 27 I worked
a summer in hospice
and listened to a man
cry I’m dying but he
said it as if warning
the living to get out
of his way.

Or how my friend died
at 13 in a house fire
shielding her little sister’s
bones.

Or how last Tuesday
the MRI sang for me
again like one half
of a waulking song a
call-and-response
the sky above painted
on the ceiling for the
claustrophobics the
weeping range of
the sky….. this is a great section. My only grouse is the repeat of “Sky”

And now the rabbits
are both living and
dying with eyes like coal and … excellent!
my coworkers say meat rabbits
are giving post-apocalyptic vibes … I think this is a bridge too far. It sounds good, but it also sounds alike a runaway train of thought 

but they don’t know
how death can be so simple
wrapped in paper. …. I’m not sure what the “but” is for. The ending is great and ties back to the beginning of the poem, but I don’t think post apocalyptic rabbits and your coworkers help the case 

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Critics, have at it! My specific questions: is this like, too much, man? And if so, what can I cut? (Also looking for whatever else you have to say!)

It’s an excellent poem that might benefit from some trimming towards the end