Fox

                             by Ellen Bryant Voigt

rangy loping swiveling left then right I'm thinking

nonchalant but the doves flutter up to the roof the the barn the crickets

leap from the grass like fleas a fox is in my yard-o my yard-o

plenty of songs in my head

to sing to my child's child if she were here

she wakes in her crib and sings to herself

her brother her mother who hate to be alone laugh at this

odd happy child so like another child content in her wooden pen

with a pot a metal straw a lid a hole in the lid a glass hat

for the hole a metal basket with smaller holes

a hole the size of the straw for hours

I made the pieces fit then took them apart

then made them fit when I got tired I lay me down my little head

against the flannel chicks and ducks then slept then woke then took

the puzzle up my mother had another child sick unto death

she needed me to fall in love with solitude I fell in love

it is my toy my happiness the child of my friends

is never ever left alone asleep awake

pushing her wooden blocks around the rug they cannt bear

her least distress their eyes stay on their sparrow poor happy child

last year I startled a fox crossing the road the tail

more rust than red the head cranked forward facing me

it stopped stock-still as if deciding whether to hurry forward

or turn back it had a yellow apple in its mouth

and the little ones chew on the bones-o.

From The Atlantic, December 2010.