It hovers above a pedestal in the East Room
under a plexiglas cube. The electric hare, created
by some Dutch artist back in Art Deco times. No one
knows for sure. During my morning shift it glows green and gold.
Powder blue on rainy days. Sometimes sequined. Feathered.
Sometimes I can barely see it. The Electric Hare. The hare.
On the wall behind, a nineteenth-century aristocrat
wears rimless spectacles. When I pivot toward the break room,
he can still see me. The East Room comes last in my rounds,
from gift shop through Impressionism, then featured exhibits,
then decorative arts. I imagine the hare coming to life, springing
into my arms, riding home to live with me. It sings my name.
It cuts my heart like a window left open to the night.
Then I turn and make the circuit again, counter-
clockwise. (This work beats hammering roof shingles
to new homes in the suburbs, a job I once held for two
and a half days.) I warn children when they get too close
to our six Impressionists, I chase down the trip
alarm around the porcelain vase. I direct dumb
school busses into the circular drive. But mostly I walk
the circuit, counter and clockwise, and dream the Electric
Hare. The hare and me at a stream, trembling. I stumble
around my kitchen and drink glass after glass of whisky. I hold
the empty tumblers to the light, imagine us within.
Aaron Brame is the former senior poetry editor at the Pinch Journal. His poetry and prose appears in Lumina, Hartskill Review, Kindred, and Tupelo Quarterly, among other places. He lives and works in Memphis, Tennessee.
