Foxes on the Streets

On a misty summer evening as
foxes trot through silent city streets, ash
and charcoal smoke settling on their fur
like Planters on the fertile soil of the
Emerald Isle, staining them from vivid
vixen red to bog-mud black. Catch their glance
and wonder every time they stop and
trap you with their gaze if that is when you
will finally hear the banshee cry that
they inspired. The evening before

the mourning, when Claíomh Solais is drawn
to thrice light the world. In this city, not
even Lugh himself can restore the glint
in the foxes’ eyes, nor the life in the
eyes peering back from the mirrors scattered
along the empty roads by the rain that
falls from skies of steel to match the smoke that
glides through dark back alleys and wafts around
the foxes. Their murky fur betrays the
poison flowing through the city’s veins, its

pulse slowed as if hibernation has now
taken hold, a desperate gambit to
survive the winter of its peoples’ soul.
This cold they feel, more icy than any
raging snowstorm and more effective at
bringing life to a halt. Light the fire,
redder than the vixen once was, to try
and keep the cold at bay, to heat the cage
inside the chest. Exhale, and let ano-
-ther waft of smoke invade the city streets.

Ross Walsh