#1317 - fox

1317

10.viii.23

4.223

fox

for Chris Mansell

 

I met a fox in the afternoon

same fox as of days before

 

some dingo brushwork at distance

but bushy tail a giveaway

 

in the afternoon, pressed on

limping, half hopeful of me

quite ready to think the worst

 

with those hang fox eyes

sit, have a scratch

so innocent, so lonely

 

be almost pet 

make me a little prince

 

it really was a conversation

move for move, in the stretch

all eyes

 

still, I could imagine baying

 

I thought where are the wallabies now?

what does a bandicoot do?

 

and thought of the neighbours then

their chickens

 

could smell my own long since

and the ducks

the risk

 

…

later recognized the den

a strawfold between dam and creek

but too late… I was wrong

 

long gone

 

true fairytale apparition

 

now, lifting the bung leg

this is dusk fox

 

if they would just take on feral cats

and have it out

two birds with one stone

self-managed

 

of course I have no gun

 

here’s the limp for pity yet

those nerves

and fox to remind me

how neither of us is of the place

 

I’m no less feral

do much more harm

 

of elsewhere and yet here we are

 

how very far, how very far

both weeds, so much the same

 

I might mention, too, I met the wife later

on four good legs

and dragged away some cardboard mulch

I think because she could

but that was another day

 

on the occasion in question

we went on our ways

 

I into my fire

the fox to its fur under

gathered up, hiding

in a place the frost might not find

 

a still pause in the long hunt, perhaps

 

as far as trust

a fox upon my mercy

 

one does what must be done

 

the clever eyes

and its own taming

 

here’s the invention of sly

I thought

 

I dreamt foxes then

and where the grass should burn

the three leg fox accusing

 

he, too, now as much a part