A storm blew in as we arrived at our neighbors’ door—welcoming us, they forgot that they’d left their baby rabbit, caged, in the garden. They’d found her burrowed into their blanket during an outdoor concert. Now, a small handful of wet fur clinging to me, her head was silky between the small ears as the fur dried. 
		
The sky was blue, then it wasn’t. Trees whirled to distant thunder. If our neighbors let this young one go tomorrow, would she remember how to be wild? Is wildness something her mother would have taught her, or was it born in her?

                Women in straw hats
		cast lines from the river’s edge
		as a rabbit hops
                out of my path. Old enough
                to distrust my overtures. 

The neighbors don’t want to let the tiny creature go, afraid the coyotes would get her. On this street, every garden has its rabbits, eating their way through lettuce and eggplants, even peppers. Dahlias. The occasional weed. Coyotes don’t catch them all.

                Autumn clematis
		fragrant with last evening’s rain.
		Three stone rabbits play 
                among late-blooming asters,
                not afraid of coyote.

Maybe the little one will grow up to feast on what we plant. Maybe not.