I saw the fox digging her burrow,

Bringing her tail in with her, gorgeous,

All that fur I’ll never touch, a color

With no name, the way fire has no singular hue,

Or a nebula. She scrabbled at the leafmeal

And paused, alert for hawks perhaps, predators

I don’t register, warm in my house, with my thumbs

And my lacy motherboards. It was the week

Of the winter solstice, of the shortest day,

When we have the least opportunity to see light

Unless you consider candles, stocked against storms.

It was a week of vice and comeuppance,

Consequence, of reality. Truth disputed lies,

There, I said it. There was an ice-storm,

Making filigree of the trees, making bullets

Of water, there was impeachment. It means

To fetter, to ensnare; it means we were a little more free.

It means we could rest in our dens that dark night,

That curt day, we could draw our plumed tails

Around us to sleep. We didn’t know

What would happen next but we’d made a way

To edge out from safety, to face raptors, shotguns.

Rabies has a cure if you can get it soon enough,

Before you froth.