One red fox crosses Route 100
skittering past our front tires—
a few yards up, another.
We could be near or half a world from
our home. Wheeling
in our seats, we try to catch
a glimpse of these two fiery hymns,
their chanting footsteps
crossing the familiar spine of a road.
I bless your ears and eyes,
and remember last winter when we watched
a fox span a snowy field, pause,
then call the other, as if with small bits of thunder,
and it was then I asked myself
how shall I live?
The dead have no lovers
and I was young and dead
until you swerved enough.
Four young birch trees
penciling the road sag knowing
that everything almost dies and then does.
For what are our eyes?
For what are our ears?
Into whose mouth are we followed?
That night we are kept awake by the moon
following the mountains’ ridge
like the tracery of a child.
In the morning, all the lines are erased.
We have coffee, read the news,
and see shards of red flashing across our screens.