Fox wanders in a land so barren there are no shadows,
only a blue bowl horizon stretching to infinity.
She straggles along emaciated streams into dry arroyos,
dizzy with memories
of a vole flushed from thick grasses,
a cache of nuts in the roots of a tree,
a mouse litter knocked from a woodpile.
Fox survives day to day on desiccated insects and old bones,
she does not know about tree rings that mark stunted summers
when forests keeled over from thirst and only death beetles thrived,
but she senses forebodings in the absences of her parched land.
She sleeps fitfully under the burning stars,
dreaming of blue ribbons of water and herons standing still,
of blue bells and wet mornings.
But the searing days fray the edges of her sleep,
something awry dries up the dew
and every night’s a broken dam the crazy wind blows through.