‘Lepus’ by Stephanie Conn

Chris Murray

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
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