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Watership Down Fugue
“It may, finally, be in the gay man’s rectum that he demolishes his own
perhaps otherwise uncontrollable identification with a murderous
judgment against him.” – Leo Bersani, ‘Is the Rectum a Grave?’
Long ago the Great Frith
a pink egg the stubbly earth
El-ahrairah Prince of Rabbits
a people uncontrollable proud
Black Rabbit of Inlé, Rabbit of Death
our long ears to the ground
bless their bottom Frith
their startail tears the hills
digger listener runner
the fearsome VHS
its dark opening
on a wood-effect TV
where a tombstone
slammed shut the 1980s
with HIV intoned
Don’t Die of Ignorance
some rabbits we’d eat
trapped from neighbouring fields
in a cage with a fork-shaped stick
carrot tied to twine
that first day in the shower
my mind became
the torso of another man
my body became a burrow
a scab of sun unpicks itself
Black Rabbit of Death
visits us too
bless my bottom bless this bottom
a tombstone on the TV
blocks the warren
this startail tears the hills
be cunning be full of tricks
other rabbits we’d keep
scurry the dark alley
where caged and curled
was Popeye
pied-nipper hydraulic kicker
the only one
whose name we remembered
that day Mr Daniels showed the class
the Durex simulator a pristine phallus
some students equipped with bananas
others with lists of questions
unprotected gaps
bless all the bright bottoms, Frith
be it so bless every startail bottom
Black Rabbit of Death
our long ears to the ground
warren blocked by a tombstone VHS
mind the thousand enemies
be cunning be full of tricks
white-blind rabbits
myxied mercy executions
in the woods where
shivering deaf-blind
we’d convince each other
to grip their withered hindlegs
swing at the nearest trunk
like we were noble
don’t eat those
the dinner table “chat”
about specific risks
certain bacteria
my blasé wave away
still knowing nothing
Bigwig in a snare
be quick you’ll die
rabbits fucking and dying
is Cowslip coming?
this rabid id
a Death Hole
Bigwig still breathing
maybe Cowslip knows?
knows the snares
around our bodies
a tombstone on the TV
we’d love a few rabbits
peer down into hatches on hutches
their never-ending incisors
gnawing the wire
like machinegun fire
that day at the town hall
the blood-bank nurse folds
a screen around my body
explains how it’s insidious
how there’s nothing
useable in its veins
a warren is a scar on field-skin
rabbits tesselate bulged eyes
our warren destroyed
a tombstone engraved on the television
air turne...
