A Rabbit Named ___ (One, Two, Three) by Alana I. Capria

A rabbit named ___ comes out of the ground. Poor ___. Do not think about the rabbits. DO NOT THINK ABOUT THE RABBITS. RABBITS ARE NOT REAL. Are rabbits real? They are not real. They are ghosts with big ears. They are the synaptic body, the dense flesh of three entwined corpses waiting for the rain to pour down. Pour down, rain. There was a man nailed to a wall. Or was that just his picture? There was another man who kept cringing whenever he walked into the radiator. There went his head. Later, his shoulder went past. Do you see the banana? Someone crushed it. Everyone who slips commits suicide. Do you see the meaning of the banana now? The rabbit knows. Do not call the rabbit ___ because that makes the rabbit sad. It shows you don't know the rabbit's real name, which it never whispers because no one takes the time to really listen to a rabbit's voice. Pity the rabbit. Pity the rabbit right now, then pity the water that keeps flooding over the rabbit's head. There was a flood out there. It was a real flood with a big red mouth. But not every flood has a red mouth. The majority of floods have white mouths and those mouths are pinched with needles, then pierced with tonsil screens and flayed with an astronomer’s beacon and we should stop thinking about the lighthouse's feelings. It doesn't have them. The only thing metal can feel is cold. The only thing concrete can feel is hard. And maybe sediment, which is not hard, but keeps crumbling whenever someone touches a finger to the stone. Here is the finger. There is the finger. Here is the finger again. Do not eat the finger because everyone knows the fingers aren't edible. Whose finger kept cringing? Whose finger kept tapping? Here was something less like a finger and more like a nose. And here was something else shining with all its silver glory and allowing us to eat the silver and be bowed. Who bowed down? The monster man. And who kept screaming? The tired mouth. What mouth? Not the red one. Not the white one. A different one. One that went inside out, then came right side up. This is about a rabbit and not a corpse. Although the corpse went into a box. Every corpse goes into a box and it doesn't matter what size the box is and what size the corpse is. What matters is how big the hole is. You can't just dig an inch and walk away. No. You have to keep shoveling until your shoulder cramps. Then you can leave. But before that, don't even think of a time before the spinal crush. And never twist around the pelvic blush which didn't exist except for that mirror in the faint window shedding glass like fur and cringing. Do you have this? I have that. I went into one room and came out the other way. There was a room locked behind several doors. Seven doors for one room. What does that mean? Lop off seven fingers. Put seven rabbits through the hole. But not the rabbit named ___. Never call the rabbit that. Just call the rabbit three.

Author bio: 

 

Alana I. Capria (born 1985) is the author of Hooks and Slaughterhouse (Montag Press, 2013). She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Fairleigh Dickinson University.  Capria resides in Northern New Jersey with her husband and rabbit. Her website is http://alanaicapria.com.