“The Girl Who Became a Rabbit,” a Poem by Emilie Menzel

“The Girl Who Became a Rabbit” 2 In our backyard, there is a remembered and reliable fig tree. We watch as the macaques climb the branches like children pulling up their mother’s arms. The fig tree’s head is dark green and slant leafed. The macaques’ fur glows brown in the ease of the sun. The macaques tangle up the tree to shake down figs for the younger macaque climbers still navigating the ground. A fig can be eaten in only one handful. Macaques are particular about the ripeness of their fruit, though maybe not as particular as orangutans would be. See the plumped pink macaque cheeks, the pink palmed macaque feet, with nails, scratched fig tree tree bark, the fig tree reliable and marked and so staying remembered. Our father tells a story at dinner about how he still feels guilty for a time in middle school when he accepted a ride home from the town milkman on the town milkman’s electric scooter. It goes like this: he gets dropped off at his house front door and he bounds inside, and his mother suspiciously says to him now you ’ re home quick and he says back quite sincerely sure am got a ride! Now his mother’s irritated and now his mother’s a bit livid and now his mother’s explaining that motorcycles are dangerous and rides from strangers are dangerous and what the hell was he thinking. He as an adult expresses shame for as a pre-teen talking back to his mother: the ride was just there it was only just there and I didn ’ t mean anything by it . Our father could make his mother so mad so mad sometimes he’d deserve a quick slap. If I leave the apartment for the day, the furniture still sits there. The frames still hold the walls. I’ve spent a lifetime crafting a conception of home and here I’ve come to rest. Green papered flowers. Blue suede chair. Tell me the story. Now tell me again. If the house were more ordered I would have less disordered thinking. This […]

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