Vincent Trimboli
April 2019
Vincent Trimboli is a Queer Appalachian Artist and Poet that holds a MFA in Creative Writing from West Virginia Wesleyan College. In 2016, Trimboli published two chapbooks with Ghost City Press (Condominium Morte and other milkweed diners). His poems can be found in Connotation Press, Still Journal, The San Diego Reader, Cultural Weekly as well as multiple print and online anthologies. Vince has taught Writing, Literature, and Public Speaking in a Medium/Maximum Security Prison in the hills of West Virginia and has been Adjunct Professor of English at many Colleges and Universities throughout his home state. Currently Vince lives in Elkins, WV.
HARE
The woman hath made an oath, that two months ago, being working in a field with other women, they put up a rabbit
— from the explanation given by Mary Toft
Dutiful in her labor
Five weeks gone and craving
meats too rich for her purse
The field as gold as ever
She reached down to her stomach
then lower still
The swell above bone
then spotted
a hare
The child growing inside
willed her legs to churn beneath her skirt
Flint gray streak of lightning
across the noon sun
They chased her for no reason
Not to eat
Not to drape
her fur across her shoulders
Chasing the poor beast
until their bellies cramped
from running
their lips dried
from April’s air
WHY SHE BIRTHED RABBITS
Perhaps this was her idea of revenge for not being invited to her junior prom. Suitors her age longed for girls who had never woken up, pooled and ready to push. Her night shirts had long been stained with milk, and boys wanted crisp white V-necks, sleeves to roll their pack of cigarettes in, the other exposing their underarm as they reached up, punching the invisible face of their fathers. Perhaps she had been tired of being unnoticed by them. Pitched on picnic benches, knees hugged up to her chin. Was this to escape a life? She had wanted to dance to a slow song. What she wanted was her body to be hers again. Then, maybe she would be hers again. Birthing rabbits is a strange ordeal. No one ever gives you corsages after.