Title: Fox
by Tim from Northern Ireland | in writing, poetry
Fresh from some other wilderness
He sprang. Rigid and red,
His bloodied eyes pulsing. Fox,
The night's grim assassin.
I swung round, hearing the gritting
Of hedge-teeth. The slow squelch
Of tyres easing to a festering bog.
There, scrambling beneath the sovereign headlights,
I saw his quarry, wide-eyed, all-pawing and frantic.
The hare, his skittish steps looking back over
His own heels to Fox, his brass speech
Claiming the air, pursuing it over furrows
With his brilliant fire.
Then stillness.
My heart in his mouth, the
Hare on the small rise, all ears
His tiny knees tensed and quivering
With the mutinous wind.
Adamantine-eyes and narrowed
To dagger points, Fox, latent 'til his leap
Makes his final attack of
Snarling enamels, the coarse clack-snap
Of little bones savaged. His frenzy
Mauling the ravaged corpse into the lake's breath,
Scattering plankton for his own constellation.
A new portent for the shivering night.
Fox, turning, smiles with his mouth full. Blood
And guts leak from the corners
Of his stained, proud mouth.
The car is still lodged in the hedge. And its mouth
Is ruefully clean.
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