Sarah Manguso

What Is the Correct Subject?

Love is too indulgent and death is too sad.

It’s time for a new mystery.



Rabbits! Blood!

Animals dabbed on the cave wall!



We can rely on the painted rabbit to teach us about the real rabbit.



And yet—

the real rabbit…



*



The moon shines on the gravel road.



Rabbit on the road, rabbit in the sagebrush: more than one rabbit?



Moon, never the same light from night to night: more than one moon?



More than one moon-experience?



Which is the correct one?



Moon, rabbit: You don’t seem to change each other but, then again…



In Japan they tell a story of the rabbit whose job it is to clean the moon. His reason for doing so is obscure.



There exists a netsuke carving of a moon that, upside-down, becomes a rabbit that, upside-down, becomes a moon…



The guardians understand even more than this.