Sudden Sharp Hot

When the neighborhood was still house, house, field,
when I was small and prone to lying, I saw
in the early morning, a red-brown fox perfectly

still in the yard. The dog was asleep somewhere.
The fence should have kept him out. He ticked
his head side to side as if it were a tambourine.

I could almost hear the music the mouse heart
made in his brain. This is the fox leaping.
I was bored. Let’s leave it at that.

~
Again, as a child, I was afraid of the prickerbush,
its green, arching vines and green thorns.

I didn’t want my body to pull off in little tufts
like the rabbits and possums. I wasn’t that desperate
to get away just yet.

~
Bottlebrush, bottlebrush.

~
Ted Hughes used the fox whenever he needed to.
The fox is a creature bound up in morals.

I sat at my desk reading the poem, trying to decide
which scene to copy out in crayon. The fox is red,
of course. The eyes are yellow-green. My desk is near the window.

Outside the ground is churned up, exposed, waiting. 
That flash of bronze behind the dirt mound
was probably a stray cat. I crumple up the picture. I got it all wrong.

~
Driving the Bluegrass Parkway, I point out a slender doe.
I see more animals this way than in any of my wanderings,
the car like a large, humming river rock. Just as often:

the loping body of a flop-eared coyote, a ground hog.
All the animals have symbolism if you try.
Sly as—cunning as—descriptive of beautiful women.

When I spy the flicker of his tail slipping into the bowl
of the grassy median, out of sight, teasing, I murmur
you little slut. The boy in the car isn’t my husband yet.

~
Foxes domesticate quite easily in Russia. I hear this on Nature.
Their pleasant faces suddenly look up for reassurance. 

Remember: that’s the sign. 

I inspect the dog for hours, sure my love for him 
is more romantic than motherly.

~
Much later and in another state, I stepped off the trail
for blackberries. Everything was warm from the sun.
I was thirsty and hungry and in need. I startled
three sparrows and a redbird. 

~
I really did see him that day. 
No, the other one.

~
When he leapt, I felt something close to rapture.
The rest of that morning, I couldn’t keep still.
Frantic with thought, I looked for some sign. 

I put my face close to the ground, the small black scat
of the mouse like broken pencil leads. 

What I heard was that snap.