The Fox by Kate Rogers

June 23, 2023
Poem title: The Fox Poet name: Kate Rogers Poem: She is waiting, bottom of the steps, back door, 4:30 this dark, rainy morning. My pajamas cling to my legs, wet from brushing against ferns on the path from the sleeping cabin. Her huge ears pricked in the light from my phone, her eyes glittering like mica in the quartz and granite shore. She crouches on her belly against the damp ground. The wildflowers my sister and I seeded in May needed this soaking, but the fox, her patchy coat hangs from her bones like a vintage store mink. As she waits, head on paws, her cowed need follows me into my mother’s kitchen. I open the humming fridge, crack three cold eggs into a paper bowl, go out the door to the slippery deck, descend the steps. The slick of eggs sways, viscous as motor boat oil on the lake. The fox creeps to the bowl and laps. Licks her lips. I am grateful and know I’m satisfying my yearning for the days my family paddled into this place, before the gravel road, the bulldozed trees flanking its scar. Yesterday, as I strode the road through the hills I saw a downed yellow birch growing sideways, crown bright green. Its bark was old gold—tarnished—yes. But still gleaming. End of poem. Credits and bio: Copyright © Kate Rogers Kate Rogers’ (she/her) poetry recently appeared in the “Neighbours” issue of subTerrain, The Windsor Review and the following anthologies: Looking Back at Hong Kong (CUHK Press), The Beauty of Being Elsewhere and Dove Tails: Letters from the Self to the World, the 10th Anniversary Writing for Peace Anthology. Her next poetry collection, The Meaning of Leaving, is forthcoming with the Montreal-based publisher, Ace of Swords, in early 2024.