Nasir Husain

To protect a vegetable garden



from rabbits



you must lay the chicken wire



twenty-five centimeters



into the soil.



They can’t dig that deep.



Eighteen meters of wire fencing,



four sides of four and a half,



iron stakes cornering the square,



entrusted with strawberries, tomatoes,



artichoke hearts.



The farm was near Biarritz.



Our hunter green tablecloth unfurled



labyrinthine corridors of blueberry bushes



winding down into the River Nive



sailing blueberry flotsam



through piment d’Espelette villages



into the Atlantic.



The Carcelles had owned Xixtaberri



for seven years.



This summer



I was their only guest.



I worked for room and board.



In July, at dinner,



they told me how



in March, at night,



they had lost their child. How



in the morning, his crib was just



empty, its narrow wooden slats



painting strips of sunlight



on the hardwood floor.



A rabbit



can slip through an opening



of five centimeters,



said Noël, his legs dangling



in the corn husks below the porch,



drinking one glass of sambuca Ramazzotti



on ice, like every other night.



He stared into its milky white



snow globe murk before each sip.



He told me he once trapped rabbits



and snapped their necks



but that he didn’t use live traps



anymore. I found one in the bushes,



an ancient and empty cage,



and he slipped his fingers



into his trap’s square lattice,



two centimeters by two centimeters,



white knuckles clinging



to rusted memory.



If there was one,



there must have been others,



entangled and forgotten in blueberry folds –



and he cried to imagine it – clawing paws,



pawing hands, unable to know



what is happening