ADAM TAVEL | FOX WAKE for Madara Mason still wronged I think this vixen’s bark on nights of frost I cannot sleep her throat here in our dying year quavering acres newly ours I doze and trace her phantom roam from woods to fallow pasture weeds I’ll never till to plant but mowed in raw July when my sneakers squished with sweat as sunburnt I climbed down to touch the bushy eyebrow of her fur intact no blood the mouth agape the razor pearls of teeth her legs outstretched and sprinting in the dirt what unseen wound she kept through shovelfuls I cursed to make her disappear and now such yowls their desperate searching vacancies have come starlit to beg back bones to pant one final hunt and claim the only body she could dare consumed beyond a gown of flame
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Volume 17 • 2022