Of Foxes and Fences

I slip from shade to shadow

sniffing at the light,

tentative paw passing

shards of grass in icy sheaths,

pinpricked moonlight

as the world refracts, retracts

before my loping gait,

swift silence across

the flooded plains and

into welcome darkness.

Creature of the night,

wandering ages hence

where no wall nor fence

has ever stood and

standing, fell,

for no mending lasts

against shade and shadow

and the steady clock

tick-tock temporary line
until time is up.

The fox flows away

eyes alive to night,

returning me to I,

my little sight of life.

Still, sometimes she calls,

stealthy vixen of the dark,

across flooded fields
piercing, painful, sharp:
a reminder of within,

our many-voicéd kin.