Fox was tired of the sun
sick of it twisting everything inside out and wringing it of moisture.
She felt her bones would crack and fall to dust.
The stream dried up one meadow at a time
until there was only a trickle deep in the folds of the mountains.
Sometimes clouds appeared out of nowhere
teasing a sprinkle of rain through the sunlight;
then just as suddenly the clouds would scatter
and the raindrops vanish into thin air.
In the wayward dampness of a wraith shower
Fox catches the scent of pitchy pine, worms, and wet earth.
She crosses a stunted meadow with the taste of rain on her tongue,
caught up in a web of malevolent change like fossils layered in stone,
creatures who waited for the rains that never came.