ADAM TAVEL Fox Wake

ADAM TAVEL | FOX WAKE

for Madara Mason

still wronged I think this vixen’s bark

on nights of frost I cannot sleep

her throat here in our dying year

quavering acres newly ours

I doze and trace her phantom roam from

woods to fallow pasture weeds

I’ll never till to plant but mowed

in raw July when my sneakers squished

with sweat as sunburnt I climbed down

to touch the bushy eyebrow of

her fur intact no blood the mouth

agape the razor pearls of teeth

her legs outstretched and sprinting in

the dirt what unseen wound she kept

through shovelfuls I cursed to make

her disappear and now such yowls

their desperate searching vacancies

have come starlit to beg back bones

to pant one final hunt and claim

the only body she could dare

consumed beyond a gown of flame