Julia Bird
Next-Door Girl
We told her: Durrbrain.
There’s no such thing as rabbit farms.
Mister Bun’s not gone to live on any rabbit farm.
Your dad dug him in round the back of the shed.
We saw him when you were out dancing
at Brownies and he told us not to say.
We dug him out - here, d’you want to smell?
and we thrust at her a Tesco bag
of chicken bones, spaghetti hoops and soil.
Its name was Rabbiting, the game to play
when football after school was off or when
the telly broke, the holiday it rained.
Its rules were - having her to tea
then eating lettuce at her, getting the thing
for cleaning pans to stick to the back
of our shorts and whispering
We’ve learned a new word: Scut.
We go twitchy when we think of her -
the way her eyes were white around the brown,
her teeth, her pinkish nose.
Page(s) 37
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