MARGARET D. STETZ

Hare Professor

When it hurts to be a woman,
I become a hare.
Reading history, I turn into another species--
warier, faster, built to flee.
Tales of mass rape, mass cuttings, mass murder, 
self-hatred and self-starvation,
whistle through my long, long ears, as 
I outrun them. 
In the classroom
where I teach,
I stand erect and quivering.
Students speak of pain,
past and present,
and cry
’til I can stand no more
and
crouch for flight.
Delicate skin transforms
into hide and fur—
my barrier. 
All I can offer
are tactics:
dart, skitter, then
sprint.
Be fleet, I say,
of feet.
Watching me,
rows of eyes widen.
Like bunnies, will
they learn in time
the old, old lessons of the hunted—
how to dodge,
and when to
leap?

 

 

 

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