rebecca griswold / poem

Mary Toft, Widow, The Impostress Rabbitt

From her obituary, 1763

plow the field pregnant 

& after with blooded under–

clothes, milk-soaked 

blame it on the bunny–

the little one who 

tumbled out of you

too soon and ran and ran and ran 

pain like tearing of brown

paper   pain like a pricking 

of bones        ghost rabbits

running ahead baby–

never-to-be, rushed

in a blood parade 

labyrinthing the hop walls–  

green and ever greener 

as soil feeds           flesh 

the size of my arm dropping 

out of me     

some things scream:           

eat them 

up:       

a hole left 

for the thing

you made  

that                unmade you

what can we do

with madness     with want

what spell of smoke and

rabbit claw    a stew forgone

for the thing she saw        

the mudded foot  

pink soft-sided paw

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Rebecca Griswold holds an MFA from Warren Wilson College. Her debut book, The Attic Bedroom, is available from Milk & Cake Press. Her poems have appeared in The Missouri Review, The Cincinnati Review, Cimarron Review, Superstition Review and others. She owns and operates White Whale Tattoo in Cincinnati.