Poetry

=Fox= By John Bruce

The light that limped in lantern circles down the road

Lit the grass heaved ditches and the cobbled stars of stone ,

And came upon it, bleeding in the stream's cold sleep;

Fox, red into fawn, sharp as a coin and ruined now.

While blind signals pilfered its garbling wit-

Spasm to spasm I watched, then touched its wetsmooth fur,

As it snapjawed at the air, splashed for a furious time ,

Alive again in a newer fear, then blinked back to the old.

I, thinking that misery ended it, tilted my gun

And ended its misery. The lantern flicked through the leaves;

Green, back through the woods the light fumbled a path ,

The stars hardened, and a fresh breeze screamed in the trees.