Fox Night

Some things happen just once.

Here, where three roads meet

I turn on a light and look out my bedroom window

For something heard in the night.

And there, running away, three fox

Fan out in three directions,

Drawing new maps with cardinal directions,

They disappear into the woods at once

Leaving only shadows of fox

Where they came to meet.

A car approaches in the night,

Gloomy dash lights shining through the window.

The car slowly rolls down its windows

As it pulls over, pointing in the wrong direction.

I see a man step out into the night

And whistle a tune he remembers he knew once,

Here where three roads meet.

What can he know of songs sung by fox?

He breathes in scat, root, and the musk of fox;

The spray of galaxies reflects on the car’s front window.

A woman steps out, their bodies meet.

They face the same direction,

And I hear his name once

As they stand poised between nights.

Poised for endless journeys in the dead of night

Along wooded paths forged by fox.

They sniff the air, remembering how it was once.

The dense warm odor is a window;

His vigilance and her fear pull them in different directions

Before they come back again, and meet.

His foot and a twig meet

The snap resounds through the night:

Waves traveling in every direction,

Startling the hidden fox.

I darken my window,

And he is gone at once.