Seeing Fox Poem by Taylor Graham

Among wood and dry stone, branches
like stiff snakes’ tongues, a web
of spider, forest walls in waves,

the focus is one live eye. Fox.
An instant, gone. Small birds
come back, complaining to the safe

shadows, the unstenched water.
No more joy of ruddy fur under a fall
of sun, no sizzle-samba

of whiskers, changing woodland
quiet into a dangerous listening.
In spite of rumor, Fox is gone

to the lethal edge of asphalt,
hugging berms and cover like an eye
behind the lashes of wild trees.