Listen to the world’s best poetry read out loud.

I was one of six or ten or twenty rabbits in a Spring Festival play which occurs to me now as a Midsummer Night’s Dream, for I remember myself hopping in & out of my awkward squatting, with ambivalent darkness flailing either side of me.

I was six years old. I wore white shirt & brown shorts with white socks and I hopped in my sandals. There was a white bob sewed onto my seat. We made our appearance in the wake of pixies who danced with farmers, who sang a song which was applauded by the parents & friends of the school. I’m leading up only to the confession: my shorts burst their seams. We had been applauded enthusiastically as we emerged from the dark perimeter of the one-room school’s long garden. Now I was assailed with the infectious laughter that escapes from numerous hand-sealed mouths. I was the last rabbit to hop across the infinite expanse of the dewy lawn. My mother caught me as I lost my way. Upon my belated exit, legitimate applause swelled up once more.