Sick Fox

News is not good for foxes on our hillside.

Mange is taking all the newborn kits.

And out for a walk around the neighborhood,

late afternoon, late spring, sky muddy gray—

I saw a grown fox lurch from a laurel thicket

and waver in the middle of the road

that slopes down half a mile to the highway.

I watched her—was she a she?—stagger, stop,

chew at a bald spot on her patchy fur,

fold her legs up oddly, one by one,

and sink down near the white dividing line.

It must have been the illness I was looking at.

She lifted up her head when I came closer

and put it down again. The news is not good.

It must have been that, that I was looking at.

And grief. I was looking at grief.