Sunday
To hear Rita Dove read "Sunday," click
Their father was a hunting man.
Each spring the Easter rabbit sprung open
above the bathroom sink, drip slowed
by the split pink pods of its ears
to an intravenous trickle.
There was the occasional deer,
though he had no particular taste
for venison--too stringy, he said,
but made mother smoke it up just in case,
Rita Dove served as poet laureate of the United States from 1993 to 1995; currently she is the poet laureate of Virginia. Among her numerous awards are the 1987 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry and a 1996 National Humanities Medal. Her latest poetry collection, American Smooth, was published in September 2004.