Poems By Gill McEvoy

Fox.

I could not swear to it, I did not see it move,

But then a fox can freeze into the land,

Stand inordinately still, fix its sly, bright eye

Steadfastly on the watcher, turning watcher into watched.

Was it a trick of light? A fallen branch suggesting fox?

Nonetheless I thought it fox, so stood and waited, waiting

Till I grew so cold my feet took root in the numb earth.

I had not moved, and it occurred to me the fox might

Ask itself the same question: was I perhaps a trick of light,

A motionless tree, a statue blending silently

Into the woodland’s edge on which I stood?

For there was no wind in the freezing air to carry scent.

I tired first: unable to endure more cold I heaved

My icy feet from the ground that held them petrified,

Looking down to do so. When I looked up again the fox –

I said it was fox, knew it was fox – had gone

(envoi,2003)