Rabbit
Word count: 266
Paragraphs: 5
Rabbit
You be the fox and try to eat me. Find me hopping along in the snow and
come chase me, with bloodshot eyes.
I’ll run. So you chase me. I sometimes turn back, make sure you’re
still there, and hop, hop. My heart leaps. My ears perk. I’m happy. That
you want me so. That you should be this devoted to chasing me.
My ears catch your footsteps, your pulse, your growl. I hear your
heat rise, your sweat flying.
Don’t you dare give up. Should the skin fall off your feet, or should
you trip on a tree stump, get up and keep chasing me. Imagine how good
my flesh tastes. Your first taste of prey in three days. My flesh is insanely
delicious.
On a winter mountain.
Covered in snow.
We are hopelessly alone.
I run.
Chase me. You will probably catch me. I will cry as I laugh, laugh as
I cry, as you eventually catch up with me. You will pounce on me. With
warm paws. Rapid pulse. Pouring sweat. Your breath on my ear. I’ve
been waiting, for this moment, since one thousand years ago.
You should bite hard into my neck. That’s my weak spot. A flurry
of white fur. Trickle of red blood. The snow is dirtied. The sky is near. I
have rainbows in my eyes, I smile lightly, take my last breath.
You know I’ve been waiting, for this moment, all this time.
Sawako Nakayasu is an artist working with language, performance, and translation. Her publications include Pink Waves (Omnidawn, 2023), Say Translation Is Art (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2020), and Some Girls Walk Into The Country They Are From (Wave Books, 2020). She teaches in the Literary Arts department at Brown University.
Hirata Toshiko is a well-known, deeply beloved Japanese poet whose plainspoken style, dark humor, and sharp, witty turns of phrase lend a unique texture to her feminism. Remarkably, she has received or been nominated for major national prizes in poetry as well as fiction and playwriting. Her collection, Shinanoka (Tokyo, Shichōsha, 2004), received the Hagiwara Sakutaro Prize for poetry, and has been translated into English as Is It Poetry? by Spencer Thurlow & Eric E. Hyett (Deep Vellum, 2024).