Cartoon

The animated rabbits munching lettuce stare
without suspicion at the hunter. There is nothing to fear
in Technicolor. One image with a wilted ear
seems to await the inevitable foe; yet unaware

his feast will end in fire, he relishes the leaves.
Bullets riot and shake the purple wood with drama.
Panic and white smoke circle the trees. A panorama
similar to Bull Run in confusion somehow achieves

what we have never made amusing in a war:
rabbits chasing their heads down a hill without surprise;
stuffing the holes in their fur with motion, as if exercise
had become, miraculously, the hilarious bailor

of protoplasm. The hunter in his piggy stance,
gun cocked and snout poised like a statue, sniffs the air.
He is about to embark skyward, riding the hot glare
of  dynamited vengeance while the rabbits dance.

I, who snicker in the theater, wait disaster.
Oh it may come tomorrow with its crimson flashes,
with its porcine dangers and rabbit-hopeful dashes;
it may come like the laugh from the dark without a master.