On today's full moon, this month's Moon Prize, the 75th, goes to Heather Nanni's poem "Fox."

Fox

by Heather Nanni


How she got in
I do not know.
She breached the fence
Somehow. Perhaps burrowing under
Like the weeds that invade from the neighboring
Yard. Or maybe she leapt, like a stallion
Over the wooden planks.

I watch her through the window.
Gorgeous, predatory,
Ready to lurch and bury herself
Into the leaf pile to play or
To snatch up the unaware chipmunk and
Sink her teeth into its soft, fur-coated flesh.

I envy the fox,
Her bold assertion of her self
Claiming a territory that is not hers to claim;
In the moment, uncaring
Of anything other than her desires
And what sates her appetites.

I watch her.
She stands at the edge of the leap, heart
Racing with the anticipatory heat of excitement.
Still. Alive

Yet, she knows death.
She screeches in the night
Like an owl or a woman stalked
And caught, her gut about to be cut by the blade
Of a predator whose evils the fox cannot conceive.
The fox screams for her young.
Stay away. Stay away.

I watch through the window.
I too am standing at the edge of a leap.
And I remind myself that I too
may live.


* * * * *

"Fox" first appeared on Heather Nanni's website, https://quirknjive.com/.

Heather Nanni is a writer and college professor who resides in New England with her husband and two children. She is the author of The Cat In The Wall and Other Dark and Twisted Tales of Women in Strange Situations and her creative and academic works have been published in Her View from Home, LD Access/AECOM Manual for Literacy Practitioners, Haunted Waters Press: Splash and on numerous commercial websites. Heather holds a bachelor's degree in English from Fordham University and a master's degree from the Applied Educational Psychology: Reading Specialist program at Teachers College, Columbia University.