When Foxes Came Calling
I. Our first fox comes between red sun and night, his ruff tinged rust with leftover glow. He must know dusk is his color, his hour, as he comes for the mice, moles and voles who scurry through tunnels which lace our lawn in subterranean webs. I’d like to think he thinks he does us a favor policing our scruffy yard.
He steps among the tiger lilies, alert for whoever slips past underfoot, even his bottlebrush tail still as a stick. He suddenly leaps, digs, bounds, pounces … nabs wind, lands with a look that admits he’s just been outfoxed …
II. Bibs white against their rusty collars, our twin foxes appear at our sliding garden door each afternoon at four, as if invited for a formal tea party.
We provide only stale kibbles our white angora Pusscat shuns. Through the glass, she studies the visitors.
Neither Pusscat nor I twitch …
The dish clean, the foxes turn but pause.
I slide the door. Pusscat bounds down the four crumbling brick stairs, chases the invaders across the garden to the woods, then, satisfied, returns.
Next day they reappear at four.
Their visits continue, and wily, they stay alive until the summer’s end.
Shots resound, hunting season open. Although they surely dive into their dens up our dirt lane, they never reappear …
III. Why no foxes now? Rabbits have returned since disappearing some years ago, so foxes should be sneaking back, gold eyes glimpsed in headlights, flash of tail …