Fox in the Fallen Snow

So we stand at the window
with the question of snow
on our minds and have no
answer. We should know

better. Four feet print the lawn.
Little feet. Something at dawn
that shivers, that cannot go on
but must. It hungers, on and on.

The dog growled in the night;
watched snow in the streetlight
fall perfectly on the white
lawn mussed by the fox’s feet.

This is not about printing a page.
This is about what is there: rage,
fear, cold on the neck to engage
death with the mere touch, the cage

we live in, the eyes that peer
into the night, into the new year,
the dying year, the time we are
here, watching. The fox is here.

Take up the night as a blanket.
Wrap it around your body, yet
show me your nakedness. Set
love against death. Do not forget.