Raising Rabbits

After dinner, after you have wiped down her highchair, the tray, the peeling surface of the kitchen table, after you have gotten down on your hands and knees and scraped the crumbs into your bare hands and tossed them into the trash, you button your daughter into her coat.

Under her hat, her hair is still slightly damp from her bath. You pull up the collar of her coat so it covers the nape of her neck. You push mittens onto her hands.

She shakes them quickly to the floor. The gesture reminds you of your mother. Can’t be bothered, it says. Don’t have the time.

Your daughter has to help you with the zipper of your coat. Each time you put it on, the metal jaw of the pull contorting just a little more than before.

She reaches for the doorknob. Soon it will be too cold to play in the evenings, and so today you will let her stay outside longer than you know you should.

#

The rabbits were a gift.

The farmer, your landlord, surprised you, opening the passenger door of his truck and gesturing to the cardboard box on the seat. “Wanted to try you first. Hutches in the back should still be good,” he said and untucked one of the top flaps.

You looked down, unsure at first of what you saw. Soft bodies, curled inward in sleep. Animal down the color of oatmeal and smoke. The rise and fall of something breathing.

“Thank you,” you said, and then, a little panicked, “How much—”

He lifted his hand, clearly pleased. “You’d be helping me.”

#

Here, you want to tell your mother, I have a yard with a fence. Here is an orchard of stone fruit from which I have been pledged a basket of peaches. Here is an old, wandering sheepdog to keep watch.

Here is your daughter, disappearing rabbits in and out of her coat.

She gasps. A rabbit slips from her hands, tumbling to the ground then springing to life. It dashes, wild, across the yellowed grass.

Your daughter’s cheeks are flushed. She rubs her eyes. So you go to her, shielding her with your body from the wind, the coming winter, its meanness.

You rub her hands together like kindling. The rabbit races one long loop around you. And together, you stomp a soft circle into the earth.