Reynard in Love

Painting by Bruno Liljefer

reynard in love

Snow smothers the hopes of the soil. Foxes smell
their own starvation in the scant stand
of hardwoods, the abandoned barn the other side

of the hill. Whiteness strokes the ruddy fur
of their faces. It tastes of copper and pain, bursting
the eardrums with its silence. Snow is beautiful like death

is beautiful—stark and intractable. But no,
there’s nothing to be admired in desperation, the stomach
digesting itself in unrequited need. Desire appeals only

when given parameters. The squirrel must get his nut
or else lose the ability to taste the things of this world.
And then who will feed the fox? Watch him trudge across

the stark face of the winter morning, each paw print
like a desperate lover’s stroke. He is a motherless
child, den he get down on his knees to pray.
The red tint of his cheek is not exuberance. He cries
not for love’s meat but simply for meat. The fox doesn’t pen
sonnets between meals, complain about abstractions.

I will stand in my dining room, Christmas morn,
sipping cider, and watch him ache across the desolation
outside, thinking; I once ached. I once starved, my need buried.

I am that fox. So far mama from you.


C.L. Bledsoe

Posted over on Ad Hominem