Little Blue Rabbit

by J.P. Linstroth / March 1st, 2026

  Getting into the enormous-black ICE SUV splashed with snow and road-salts
      He was wearing an aqua floppy-eared rabbit hat
    And he had a Spiderman-backpack on
With a checkered black-white jacket
      Surrounded by giants
  And like any rabbit near danger
      He looked scared, darting eyes
  His diminutive smile, gap-toothed
    Cherubic cheeks, olive skin
  And yet a pronounced innocence, almost as if he was about
    To receive his First Communion
      And waiting in silence
  But still too small
    As big hands prodded him along
      And his puppy-nigrine opal-eyes
  Looked furtively and shyly about avoiding any gaze
An innocent timidity
  From the bitter cold of Minnesota to the Texas desert
    To a detention facility in the middle of nowhere
  His family lawyer showed his simple crayon drawings
    Scribbles showing his parents and siblings surrounded by
  Crude-swirling razor wire, stick figures crying and frowning
      Surrounded
And his preschooler gaze looking frightened upward
  Inquiring about his mama
    As he was shuffled along toward the unfamiliar
      Amidst the murmur of federal agents
Mostly just legs to him
    Like giant sequoia trees in a forest
      Of adults
Who is to blame: NAFTA? Trump? Civil wars in Central America?
  40 years of ineptitude in immigration reform?
    As in Siqueiros’ Echo of a Scream
      The crying shrieks of innocence everywhere
    But mostly shocked into silence

J.P. Linstroth has a PhD (D.Phil.) in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the University of Oxford. He is an Adjunct Professor at Palm Beach State College and the author of several books: Marching Against Gender Practice: Political Imaginings in the Basqueland (2015, Lexington Books); The Forgotten Shore (Poetic Matrix Press, 2017); Epochal Reckonings (Proverse Publishers HK, 2020, Winner of Proverse Prize 2019); Politics and Racism Beyond Nations: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Crises (2022, Palgrave Macmillan); and Swimming in Blue Shadows: A Collection of Short Stories and Poems (2022, Proverse Hong Kong, Proverse Supplementary Publication Prize). Read other articles by J.P..

This article was posted on Sunday, March 1st, 2026 at 8:00am and is filed under Poetry.