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’