After the Fox
Not my ankle splayed there, stripped
of meat, not my ribcage, my skull
discarded on the bog. Solitary horn.
Most likely an unlucky sheep,
spinal tissue still visible.
Behind me a stone cottage hunkers
in decay, vulnerable to stars.
One black boot, god knows how long.
A steel trap, teeth locked
on decades of rust.
How easy to be this victim:
a simple slip, a trip, collision
of flesh and rock. Rendered
immobile in peat, tucked back beyond
hill after hill. The distance out
measurable only in the fleet foot
of the fox, for whom this day
quite possibly promises abundance.
But not me, not these precise steps
around, away from, abandoning
this boneyard. Not this hand,
this ear, this throat. I press
a relentless path into the wind,
keep watch, go quickly
quickly.
*
Doo Lough, July, 2008
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