What does the Fox say?

Fox

I needed fox     Badly I needed
a vixen for the long time none had come near me
I needed recognition from a
triangulated face      burnt-yellow eyes
fronting the long body the fierce and sacrificial tail
I needed history of fox    briars of legend it was said she
   had run through
I was in want of fox

And the truth of briars she had to have run through
I craved to feel on her pelt     if my hands could even slide
past or her body slide between them     sharp truth distressing
   surfaces of fur
lacerated skin calling legend to account
a vixen’s courage in vixen terms

For a human animal to call for help
on another animal
is the most riven the most revolted cry on earth
come a long way down
Go back far enough it means tearing and torn    endless
   and sudden
back far enough it blurts
into the birth-yell of the yet-to-be-human child
pushed out of a female   the yet-to-be woman

1998

“Fox”, from Fox: Poems 1998-2000 by Adrienne Rich. 

Image by Susan Seddon Boulet