12-20-2025, 12:07 AM
This is a really strong poem. I’ve input my interpretations in the line-by-line below, and apologies if I’m misreading, but either way on each reading I feel speaker’s connection to death, how the rabbits represent that connection, and what it all means for speaker in this moment. Structurally, I love how we go from broad to specific and then back to a broader idea of death to close. I reference below, but it’s like a TV show, where we’re introduced to the concept, the meat of the episode takes place, and then we transition out with some reflection on what we’ve learned. I don’t have much in terms of suggestions for improvement or tightening, to me your poem feels just about complete, and I very much enjoy reading it.
Quote:My wife and I raise meat rabbits. Love this opening line. “meat rabbits” is so wonderfully specific and accurate, and yet visceral. Really hooks me in.
Someone on a TV show Interesting to put this on it’s own line, to break after “TV show” as it connects the previous line to this idea that the wife and Speaker are also part of a tv show. Sets a tone that this poem will be telling a story of some sort, that there’s a structure to it.
said, “Bunnies. They just want to die.”
It’s true.
We haven’t gotten to the meat
part yet. Feels like this is referring both to the raising of the rabbits, and a wink to the poem itself, haven’t gotten to the meaty bits of what we’re going to dive into in this work. I enjoy these lines.
13 live births, 2 still
1 eaten by its mother
(they do it when they’re poorly)
then 1 could not nurse
2 dead in the night
3 when they were weaned. [b]This stanza reads like a mini montage of baby rabbit deaths. Its purpose seems to be to set up how frequently S has encountered death which transitions away from rabbits and to human experience later in the poem. While it doesn’t necessarily detract from the piece, it lacks the poetic depth of the rest of the writing here. I don’t think the next stanza about each body getting a shroud is as impactful without the listing of the deaths here, but somehow this part does come across as sort of tacked on. I do end up wondering what happened to the other live birth rabbits not listed, and why only 7 by my count get their deaths described. Are the others still living and just not big enough for slaughter yet? It’s all a bit mishmashed for me still here.[/b]
Each body gets a shroud
of paper towel Lovely
and I think how death
can tell a story.
Like how at 27 I worked
a summer in hospice
and heard a man cry
I’m dying as if warning
the living to get out
of his way. Fantastic stanza. Simple and yet the image it puts forth sticks with the reader. All of us will picture this differently, but the way it’s written, we’ll all be imagining the same experience.
Or how my friend died
at 13 in a house fire
shielding her little sister’s
bones. Wow, another strong stanza with an image that haunts. Together with the last, it’s the strongest writing of the poem.
Or how last Tuesday Nice transition, from the unknown past to essentially the present and...
the MRI sang for me ...from death as S knows it from others' direct experience, to a more personal run-in
again one half “again” is doing a lot of work here. And the enjambment on “one half” helps to paint a picture
of a waulking song a [b]waulking song being a matriarchal experience/tradition, combined with the MRI, the spotlight on “one half” above, and rabbits as “both / living and dying” all leads to a reading of a breast cancer diagnosis for speaker. It’s subtle and unspoken. A stark contrast to how the friend died, the old man in hospice, and even the “13 live births, 2 still” rabbits of stanza 3. Perhaps that’s why that stanza is so clear on what happened to some of their deaths? To lend to that contrast? [/b]
call-and-response unique image here, the MRI as participant in this type of song, the driver really in this case. Makes me also wonder if there’s a statement here on technology replacing human connection, the village being replaced by science, and what that means. It’s not explored further, but there’s a kernel of something here. I’m not sure if it’s intentional or not, and I wonder if it’s meant to be further played out
clouds painted on
the ceiling for the
claustrophobics
the weeping
range of the sky. The lack of end-line punctuation (save for periods) makes this section a bit of a tricky read, but the stylistic choice is adhered to consistently in the poem and isn’t a distraction. “weeping / range of the sky” is beautiful
Now the rabbits are both
living and dying with eyes The break on “eyes” here, feels like its meant to tie back to S, her breast cancer diagnosis, she’s the rabbits here, she can see death’s presence in her life, living with death inside her
like coal I hold them the lack of punctuation works throughout, but here feels like an inconsistency. Some pause is missing between “coal” and “I hold them” simply because there are periods in the poem, there’s a comma in S1. The rules that have been set forth so far indicate punctuation mid-line is part of the poem, so it being missing here does distract for me.
until they’re wrapped
in paper and nothing To be wrapped in both paper and yet wrapped in nothing at one’s death, because what is anything when we die? Thought provoking statement well done in a small line
can come undone.