They

They

They

They use a pronoun called I
all the time. It seems to hop around
with them.
But you can’t see it properly
not all of it. Not like you can see
ears or whiskers,
or paw or a sun shadow.

This is what Peter tells the flowerbed rabbit
who lives deep in dark leaves
that grow straight to a sky of apple-red flowers.
She can’t read.
He shows her      the straight line
her paw scraped
on the rained-on damp
green-growing ground: that’s “I”; he puts
two short, stiff twigs – one each – same length –
at the line’s
head & foot: that’s their
Capital I.            But it doesn’t MOOOVE,
she objects: those twigs, that scrape
will NEVER hop.
Peter’s ears twitch – but he has to agree. Goes on.
Struggles – how to explain: “I’s written representation”?

It’s a picture,
he says at last, it’s a stand-for
what lives in each of them, it’s common
to all of THEM – as the earth beneath our paws
is common to all of us (including them)
who run, hop, walk,
fall, lie, or die on it.
She doesn’t know what die is. It’s a word,
he says, like I is: nobody knows what it’s like
inside it.
       I die, you singular die, he dies, she dies, it dies,
       You plural die, we die, they die –

He’s given her a lecture
when all he wanted to do
was follow the white
bobs of her tail
disappearing
into the scarlet flowers.