The glib trot, smooth
freeze of prints, tracks
leading to this: the shocked cry,
the snow's startled hiss, astonished
flurry of steel - jaws sprung, the trap
is still now, and listens. The fox's sermon
is in his teeth: faith can snap bone
and can cast the damned
limb off from the body, to live.
The washed snow is witness
and can tell, in its crimson language
of the lurch, the rise, and the crippled grace
in its three-legged flight
away...

The hunter comes in the morning.
He sees with a reddening eye.
The hunter's oaths are the fox's psalms.
The gnawed paw melts in the snow.