‘Lepus’ by Stephanie Conn

Lepus   Their collective noun is ‘drove’ though they mostly live alone, content with a solitary life,   or become one of a pair growing brave in the spring; chests puffed out, as if   fluid has filled the cavities and dropsy has caused a long-forgotten frenzy, that gives rise   to a meadow dash in daylight or a moonlit boxing match below the moon hare’s dark patches;   that ancient celestial ancestor, as a distant cousin is driven south by the hunter and his dogs.   Lepus is © Stephanie Conn (first published in Burning Bush II)

Stephanie Conn was born in Newtownards, Co. Down, in 1976. Her poetry has been widely published. She was shortlisted for the Patrick Kavanagh Prize, highly commended in the Mslexia Pamphlet Competition and selected for Poetry Ireland Introductions Series. She is a graduate of the MA programme the Seamus Heaney Centre. Stephanie is a recipient of an Arts Council Career Enhancement Award and recently won the inaugural Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing. Her first poetry collection is due to be published by Doire Press in autumn 2015.   Delta and other poems by Stephanie Conn