City Fox
By Ruth Fainlight
It makes me glad to watch a fox
cross the road as I drive at night
through the city after a party.
I admire how much she seems at home,
her confident pose as she trots toward
a black plastic garbage bag, and
notice that she or another fox
has been there already: kitchen waste
and peelings strewn across the pavement.
She noses through what’s there: empty
beer cans, cartons stained with sauces,
but nothing’s tempting enough. Hopeful,
she goes in search of another cache.
Is this a first sign of social
breakdown, nature dominating
the city’s infrastructure?
Yet surely that fluffy-haired cub I saw
a few minutes later could not be
a harbinger of anarchy? Although
maybe he is. He certainly did
not look both ways before crossing
the road, nor take in how close that car,
turning the corner, came to him.
For the moment, though, everything
works as usual, and I assume
that they, like me, got safely home.
Copyright Credit: Ruth Fainlight, "City Fox" from Sugar-Paper Blue. Copyright © 1998 by Ruth Fainlight. Reprinted by permission of Bloodaxe Books Ltd..
Source: Sugar-Paper Blue (Bloodaxe Books Ltd., 1998)