The Visiting Priest

There's a sly fox loose in the garden.
Mother has tried to stamp the life
out of his red pelt.
She has tried poison and steel traps,
those goblin-mouths,
but he has tricked his way into living.
I am told his smile could will a woman
to stone.
I am told he licks the cherrywood bark
and his hunger grows
for the berries we pick in spring,
plump black dolls
kissing up the sun.
I imagine he is the sparkling sea -
the saltwater son.
I imagine he is lean and quick -
and so very clever.
The visiting priest warns us
about men who take animal form -
typical predators: wolves,
badgers, minks, and the slick-skinned fox.
Mother wrings her hands over this.
But I look closer on spring evenings,
when the moon is very high
and the luminous water pools
reflect some lucid beauty.
In the stillness, I hear it:
the hushed sound of fur and tremor,
whispering to me.
Down below, the air is cold
and my tracks,
lost in the waist-deep thicket.