Sergeant Bunny's Last Stand

A trenchcoat-wearing bunny
listens intently for clues
in the waves of jazz chuckled
by nutty squirrels who also
tend gardens. They grow
the sweetest red peppers.
When you bite into one, blues
spill all over your mouth,

which is why the bunny suspects foul play.

He asks the Radon Daughters,
who sing fine as Supremes,
Where Did Our Love Go?

Whatever happened to the man in the red canoe?

That man wrote every song
the squirrels ever played.
He wasn't the politest stallion
in the stable, but awful handy
to have around, and when he danced
he could knock the Earth
from its axis. However briefly.

The bunny would rather
interrogate Liz with her long legs,
black sheath, and cowboy boots.
She only came for the second set,
but as she entered the woods,
she saw him paddling upsteam
with Mona Spice, the kitchen sink,
and one slender dogwood twig
dreaming in a Bud Light can.

Every butterfly in the forest
surrounded that canoe,
fireflies glowed its path
into the end of twilight,
and cicadas sang along
with daughters and squirrels.

Somewhere around that bend
Mingus is laughing, knocking back
brandy and milk, and Rashaan sees
the reeds and whistles he plays
in thick Van Gogh layers.

That's where he went, Liz says,
pointing past five little stars,

and the bunny writes down
every word and twitches over
to the squirrels playing
love songs on saxophones.