Barbara HeRgott
Hyett
Northern Swift Fox
- Vulpes velox hebes
She circles into wind and lies down
where she can see the trail on which
she's come. Danger flattens
her black ears against her. She listens
backwards. Her fur is a batting of stars.
At night, she rises, finds every cache
she has hidden, unburying the flesh
and the bones: What will be eaten,
what carried away? She lives
without malice or shame,
compelled to pursue the shoulders of any
fat mouse, the scruff of a rabbit's neck.
When she is done she must stalk again.
Behind her eyes are mirrors. She can see
herself in the famine between kills.
Mary Jo Bang
Chicago
On the 44th floor, plate glass against night
twins the room, invites me out
for a moment of vertigo,
a mock suicide. Below is Rush Street:
bar
talk
and head lamps crawl
on a lighted screen like drosophila waking
from an ether sleep. Under the bed,
red coral carpet, azalea swirls.
Image is invincible, defies gravity,
