A white fox
in snow –
she was difficult
to spot: first
the eyes too
bright of copper
like coins tossed
between the bars,
long blank –
it was a cage
she was born to
displaced by avalanche,
to be like a toy
buried by the dog,
how it belongs to one –
who will know it exists
coveted, kept low
in haunting torpor,
until made smallest
by time and inattention
both the haunting first
and then the self,
slipped the first prison,
but by the own
walked to where
the snow had piled
to sink in icy balm
until one day, a hunter
saw her by her shape:
the two pointed ears
that beckoned,
eyes lidded in
careful dreaming
and the fox, having
dreamt many
stories like, to be
a young girl, of him
made warm apples
in her teeth
melting what was frozen
deep in the gut,
and the shock of warmth
sent her running –
away – what looked
like forever was
the curve of horizon,
until as imagined
in first memory
before the sudden world –
she knew then softness
like the snow, once
only an endless cold,
could be light on her
nose when first fell –
and would pause in every place
such, to gather more of
all not like the other –
it was a springtime
the wild first flowered
beneath the peek of that
long-coming sun.
Tag: mental wellness
skipping stones
Truth, may be cobbled:
first having been strong
as static clings
like poppy pollen in
the school yard, for-
getting what is known
of threat
in oleander chewed of
my family’s garden,
not knowing this
poisoned flavor - I
gather a pocket of stones
too smooth and flat
like the world has been
and wandering, find still water
chewing on each before tossing
having crumbled sand in the mouth
same I was too long held
in another’s
their singing so hot: I like glass
transparently, still not quite
traceable in bright light
the truth held firmly
too round to skim the water
or stack one on top the other
but gathered like a cairn
where the river turns.
skipping stones 