"Rabbit Hutch"

There was that time we built the rabbit hutch
Out of the old green kitchen table.
And scrap window screens from the new back porch.
We took the rusty hinges from the ice chest.

I was still very small then, not quite five.
Tiny enough to climb inside once we’d secured the legs.
I’d rest my braided head on warm wood chips
And forget the warnings about breathing in cedar.

Even now the smell of trees in smithereens
Bends my knees and makes me touch my face
Just to feel the heat of something.
And I smile about the lop eared rabbit we never got.