Gene Berson

---

Foxalito

so here's my fox
dead with his ear chewed off
on the dirt road in the calm sun

what do I forget
when the redwing blackbirds pivot like a veil of rain
shaking open the membrane between this world
and the one behind the sky that keeps us sane?

hey fox, hey donny downe
ye art not a clown
nor I a clone, nor Hitler's eider
down bridge from nihilism
via the glint of a fluorescent light on a scalpel:

nay, ye are a soft sleeping miracle
who slept in a hole and whose fur
is being pulled out in puffs, like thistles

like the wings of thistle seeds! Aye! tender fox
whose side lies torn open
echoing a nasty hum of green and black flies
eagerly laying their eggs in this August feast.

I was born at noon, foxalito
on a Sunday in fact. it was the 15th ---
in an August just like this ---

the blue is the sky the darker blue the sea
the darker blue in the darker blue the shadows of the clouds
and you lying here as if you were sleeping

your paws tucked under your chin.
you were my omen
the soft throat of a woman

so let me sit here next to you awhile
feel what it means to die in August
when time has stopped

when the hay is blond and dry
and the beaks of barley have thrown out their tongues
like black sparks to chuckle in the dirt.

what happened? what chewed off your ear?
what killed you and didn't care to eat you?
a competitor no doubt, an enemy

that knew you were accustomed to pad down this dirt road
probably on a moonlit night
when everything could hardly bear staying in its skin.

I am sad I am sad
they say that I will never drown
because I was born with a veil over my face

on top of that the cord was tied seven times around my neck.
what a dance I did within my mother's womb!
I can feel the turns like the seasons

even now --- perhaps people were really foolish enough
to imagine that I, who was born on the day
our blessed mother rose into heaven

and on Napoleon's birthday, really would believe in anything
but eternity, it's true I can't talk
but even now rocks tick inside my ears

and only you, foxalito, commune with me in deadly sleep.
to die in August, by birth month, and my omen on top of it!
I feel the hot dust under my bare feet

wind is a secret trellis around my throat
my rage is slackened out here, otter
glint white far down in the kelp bed.

monkey flower dust my gold with your deep sun.
here, little fox, I take the gold of the sticky monkey
and rub it into your bones so they'll glow

when the harvest moon comes up pretty soon
here, foxalito, some sky tinted with a little fog
so your eyes will always see

foxalito, I stroke the brown dirt the handfuls of hay
that your earthen skin will purr with the new winds
yea, little fox, now feel my hand warmed by this stone

feel how smooth it is, how it must have been washed by the water long ago,
and remember that your time is coming tonight
when I place your sharp teeth high in the night sky.

Copyright (C) Gene Berson, 2006. All rights reserved.

NEXT