Jack

Jesse Doiron

March 26, 2022

Gentle Jack, who shoots

real guns at rabbits from afar,

at twelve, still likes to play 

at being wounded in a war.

Down a deep-declining ditch

that’s richly overgrown

in weeds, where hares dwell

whimsically in peace, as if alone,

the boy rolls well in throes

of well-imagined agony.

Great gouts of blood pretend

upon the battle, gamily,

until he falls against a nest

of leverets, near death,

unhappy in their wandering

about for mother’s breath.

Jesse Doiron spent 13 years overseas in countries where he often felt as if he were a “thing” that had human qualities but couldn’t communicate them. He teaches college, now, to people a third his age. He still feels, often, as if he is a “thing” that has human qualities but can’t communicate them.