Looking for Rabbits.

The veterinary library is on the third floor
of the laboratory building,
next to the hospital,
across from a pasture.

Every day I walk through the dimly-lit halls,
in search of "The Journal of Applied Poultry Research,"
or perhaps, "The Camel Newsletter."

All of the lab doors are wide open, beckoning curiosity.
White coats swirl beakers of blood
while the building vibrates with a low-pitched hum,
but my mind is always on the rabbits.

They're white with numbers painted on their sides;
drastically large numbers like 76 or 203.
They sit on lab desks, calmly,
or sometimes they are in cages lining the walls--
their front paws pressed against the bars
like my own Dutch so often does.

I have never seen the rabbits, but they're there--
behind some partially cracked lab door,
offering themselves unknowingly to further
the study of deodorant research.

I can't help but look in every door,
darting my eyes frantically from wall to wall,
ready to dash in and out of the room
in a cloud of injustice and fur.

I don't really understand politics.
I've never laid down on the pavement of protest,
or waved a sign, or screamed loudly,
except that one time at the sidewalk evangelist.

But as I walk out of the laboratory,
the contrasting sun blinding me for a moment,
I realize that there's going to be trouble for the fool
that gets between me and those hypothetical rabbits.