Driving to Northampton, we encounter three foxes
November newly darker down the road
along the reservoirs, we see a fox—
prim sentinel unflinching in our lights,
kitsune of the Whately woods, the night’s
familiar. Further on, an orthodox
escape—in rugged flight the sandy coat
goes undulating up the hill, unsleek
and pricking as we pass. And then the last,
who turns in her unhurried crossing, shows
her clutching mouth dramatically unclosed
around the chicken rounding downward, massed
before her like a golden purse—as chic
and fine as feral slaughter could appear
in our intrusive beams’ ungnostic glare.
© Libby Maxey
Libby Maxey is a senior editor at Literary Mama. Her work has appeared in Crannóg, The Maynard, and elsewhere. She is a winner of the Princemere Poetry Prize and the Helen Schaible International Sonnet Contest, and her chapbook, Kairos (2019), won Finishing Line Press’s New Women’s Voices contest. Her non-literary activities include singing classical repertoire and mothering sons.
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