SELF-PORTRAIT AS THE EASTER BUNNY by Amie Whittemore

SELF-PORTRAIT AS THE EASTER BUNNY

Snug as a denned rabbit, my sweet niece
       asleep in my bed, I woke

to hide eggs in our small apartment.
       Husband dreaming on the futon

in the skimmed light of 5am, I slid eggs
       into shoes, behind picture frames,

under her sweater shed last night
       after we chased each other

round and round the tiny rooms:
       monsters, full of ticklish terror.

She woke and we watched
       her seek treasure—hot, I’d say

sometimes. Cold. She thought it strange
       the eggs were real, not plastic stuffed

with candy or coins. We should hide them
       again when sister gets here—

she knew then, age five, anyone
       can gift someone a mystery.

I haven’t seen her since that Easter
       when I gathered with her family

for the last time before the divorce.
       Somehow, she’s fourteen.

I thought my mythical heart would mend.
       I thought I wouldn’t miss her

now that she’s a stranger. This year, I’ve been
       recruited to hide colored eggs

for my nephew. I feed him hints,
       draw matching whiskers on our cheeks—

both of us animals, feeling brand new.

*

Amie Whittemore (she/her) is the author of four poetry collections, most recently the chapbook Hesitation Waltz (Midwest Writing Center). She was the 2020-2021 Poet Laureate of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow. Her poems have won multiple awards, including a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Prize, and her writing has appeared in Blackbird, Colorado Review, Terrain.org, Pleiades, and elsewhere.