The Dog Fox

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The Dog Fox
By Gillian Grozier

Silver threads rip through the fabric of sky,
a shooting sign defied by small foragers
whose feet make faint sound
in the whole white eeriness of moonstroke.

Amid rocks, the dog fox barks
a ritual summoning.
Does he have a mate? Into night's vastness
he gives voice, moonlit, chattering.

As the blood-filled sun levitates
the fox slips over the lip of stone
flashing firebox red, circles widely
his thick brush sailing behind him, weapon-like.

In one fluid, forward motion
the fox sinks teeth into a soft neck;
some terrified animal shrieks
before silence washes back.

The dog fox returns to the boundaries
of darkened den and blood-soaked days
where he finds her, then;
she, who eluded him, now sits in sunlight.

He drops the dead body and approaches;
consentingly, she turns, smaller than he
a red, more bronze in sunlight
in ritual greeting, his uxoriousness a daystar, then.

She, moon-maker, star giver
for her he knows he kills,
the rocks a fox's witness,
the lively dark, the fading, starry day.