Touch of Fox

 

You slipped off in my silence

and gave me no time

to look in the mirror for grief.

The parting was fresh with joy

too savage to burst in tears.

 

I committed you to memory.

Already there that morning

I had placed my twenty massacred hens

found broken in the grass.

They lay dead like tropical flowers

or angels dropped from the sky.

 

Last Christmas, your letter came

like the old fox.

Over a bridge of feathered backs

I will return a red whisper.

 

also published in ‘Poetry Review’

 

 

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