print previewback MARK JARMAN
Sick Fox
News is not good for foxes on our hillside.
Mange is taking all the newborn kits.
And out for a walk around the neighborhood,
late afternoon, late spring, sky muddy gray—
I saw a grown fox lurch from a laurel thicket
and waver in the middle of the road
that slopes down half a mile to the highway.
I watched her—was she a she?—stagger, stop,
chew at a bald spot on her patchy fur,
fold her legs up oddly, one by one,
and sink down near the white dividing line.
It must have been the illness I was looking at.
She lifted up her head when I came closer
and put it down again. The news is not good.
It must have been that, that I was looking at.
And grief. I was looking at grief. 