About Surprise

In a proverbial flash it comes to me
how crude our
human rudeness is--

Why it should surprise
anyone who’s skinned out
a rabbit,
to realize how thin the skin is

on human conventions, how
astonishingly quick
the wrong look
at the right guy on the subway

could put your
lovely gleaming
guts lolling into your own bewildered hands

is perhaps the truly
wondrous thing about us. Such innocence

as peering curiously
out of the tall grass

a rabbit might experience, before the flash.

-- William Pitt Root