Savannah Cooper
Three and a Half Months After
I found a baby rabbit stranded by the back fence.
I can’t say how. The dogs were sniffing over there,
and I thought back to when the lab had tossed
naked bunnies in the air like toys.
I heard something near a squeak and ran outside.
The noise was just a bird screaming as the sun
fell in the sky, but there was a baby rabbit, gray
and frail. I thought it was dead until I looked closely,
saw the gentle shudder of its body.
The mother stood in the yard against the dogs
as long as she could, desperate, and finally slipped
through the slats of the wooden gate. She waited
in the yard between our house and the neighbors’--
still and watching.
I sent the dogs back inside and gently lifted
the baby with a shovel. I didn’t want to touch it,
whether that’s myth or fact, that the mother
would catch my scent and turn away. It tumbled
across the black surface, waking and reaching out
with tiny legs. I carried it over to the gate,
placed it on the other side of the fence.
The mother watched, didn’t move. I wanted to tell her
to come collect her child, that it was unhurt and safe,
but there was nothing I could do.
I left them there, ten feet apart, the baby sleeping
helplessly in the grass that needed to be mowed,
the mother alert and patient. I didn’t return
until after dark, shining my phone’s flashlight
into the grass until it drew moths. They were both gone.
And I held that moment close, that feeling of saving
something. A small thing, sure, inconsequential even,
but I had done it, had stopped nature from its relentless course.
There would be other rabbits and other losses
loud and quiet, but this day I had given a mother
back her child, and that was something. I already knew
what it was to lose, and maybe she did too, but I gave her
what I couldn’t give myself and wished blessings upon her,
this wild animal that made a home of the space
under our worn deck.
I can’t say how. The dogs were sniffing over there,
and I thought back to when the lab had tossed
naked bunnies in the air like toys.
I heard something near a squeak and ran outside.
The noise was just a bird screaming as the sun
fell in the sky, but there was a baby rabbit, gray
and frail. I thought it was dead until I looked closely,
saw the gentle shudder of its body.
The mother stood in the yard against the dogs
as long as she could, desperate, and finally slipped
through the slats of the wooden gate. She waited
in the yard between our house and the neighbors’--
still and watching.
I sent the dogs back inside and gently lifted
the baby with a shovel. I didn’t want to touch it,
whether that’s myth or fact, that the mother
would catch my scent and turn away. It tumbled
across the black surface, waking and reaching out
with tiny legs. I carried it over to the gate,
placed it on the other side of the fence.
The mother watched, didn’t move. I wanted to tell her
to come collect her child, that it was unhurt and safe,
but there was nothing I could do.
I left them there, ten feet apart, the baby sleeping
helplessly in the grass that needed to be mowed,
the mother alert and patient. I didn’t return
until after dark, shining my phone’s flashlight
into the grass until it drew moths. They were both gone.
And I held that moment close, that feeling of saving
something. A small thing, sure, inconsequential even,
but I had done it, had stopped nature from its relentless course.
There would be other rabbits and other losses
loud and quiet, but this day I had given a mother
back her child, and that was something. I already knew
what it was to lose, and maybe she did too, but I gave her
what I couldn’t give myself and wished blessings upon her,
this wild animal that made a home of the space
under our worn deck.
Biography
Savannah Cooper (she/her) is a Missouri native who now lives in Maryland with her partner and dogs. Her work has previously appeared in Mud Season Review, Steam Ticket, Gone Lawn, Midwestern Gothic, and Rust + Moth, among other publications.
