Prompt: Write a poem which gives instruction
The Instructions for a Rabbit Hutch
For more than thirty years, good fencing
built within our true boundary and with
respect. But to the new neighbour:
please don’t pull the soil away, this poem
has ample air on this side of the fence.
Your rabbit, having easily slipped under:
now lives more in my yard than his own.
He has chewed each leafy lettuce poem.
Your rabbit has no respect for our carrots.
Here sir, are the instructions for a hutch.
Please neighbour, stop poisoning the poems
close to the fence: espaliered poems and fruit;
apples in the main. Let poems over here, on
my side of the fence be in prime: ripe and full
of nourishment and good health. All better lives
with good instruction and good management.
Oh, oh, new neighbour, my instructions to you firm;
no more planks you loosen and remove.
I am cautious on how I may best instruct
a man who comes so close to beating
wife and child. But with Easter close could
I organise an Easter Egg hunt for the kids,
a chocolate cake for Mum and Dad
and thus break the ice.
All I want in these instructions
is for new neighbours to be nice.
Benita Kape © 1.4.2019
benitakape 