Plastic Baskets & Cellophane Grass

Bad-ass Bunny

—Anonymous Photos

EASTER AT THE NURSING HOME
—Donal Mahoney, St. Louis, MO

When bread
is this good
a morsel

will suffice
and when wine
is this good

a sip is enough
for the wraiths
and specters

coming toward
the altar now
on crutches

walkers
in wheel chairs
celebrating 

the last Easter
some of them
will know

as they await
a resurrection
of their own.

CASSEROLES
—Kathy Kieth, Diamond Springs, CA
 
Easter Sunday: neighborhood clogged
with vans and grandchildren: stiff party
dresses and patent leather: daughters-
in-law juggling foiled-up dishes, purple
rabbits stuffed under one arm . . . 
The occasional resurrection, it is: vernal

sacrifice of baked ham and deviled
eggs: plastic baskets with cellophane
grass: jelly bean rainbows in prim crystal
waiting on the coffee table, as chocolate
melts somewhere under the daffodils . . .

When I was a baby my Dad got “Harvey”
   He was a big purple stuffed Easter Bunny
   that was once part of a store display
   My Dad named him after the popular Jimmy Stewart movie
   you know the one where a large white rabbit is the eccentric lead character's imaginary friend
   Anyway my older brother and I “loved" Harvey like a big teddy bear
   we’d even fight over who could take him to bed
   and we’d rub him till patches of his fake fur would wear thin
   and the wires holding up his ears poked through  
   My mom took out the wires so that he became “lop-eared”
   It was Mom’s six cats that caused Harvey’s demise
   At first the cats scratched on Harvey instead of using their posts
   Then one of her altered former tom-cats peed on Harvey
   possibly acting as if marking territory
   Mom had to break the sad news to us kids—
   She couldn’t clean up Harvey well enough
   especially because he wouldn’t fit in the wash
   My mom couldn’t burn Harvey as in the Velveteen Rabbit story
   (My brother might have taken a subtle pleasure in doing that too by then)
   But how sad to see the garbage men haul him away
   I did wish that Harvey could have gone to a heaven for stuffed toys

—Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

[Insert your own caption here]

EASTER SUNDAY MORNING
—Cynthia Linville, Sacramento

Egg hunts always remind me of
our Elmer’s glue and food coloring
mohawks
that bled when it rained
on Saturday nights
coloring our ripped t-shirts pastel
dripping onto the drunk people
passed out on the lawn
who would rise again with the church-goers
 

Easter Bunny Gets Pulled Over for Speeding
 

Today's LittleNip:

THE SPRING HEAT
—Kevin Jones, Elk Grove

Tended to ripen the
Dead things towards
The bottom of the hill
Even faster.  Jack
The Lab was happy
To be in charge of
That.  Shouldn’t
Have been a problem:
He was the neighbors’.
But he liked us better.

_______________________

—Medusa

—Photo by Kevin Jones