Today's poem is by Jack Roberts.
Jack Roberts’s poems appeared in Sites, Boulevard, Tar River Poetry Review, and the Occupation Wall Street Poetry Anthology, among other reviews and collections. His poem "The New Reforms" was selected by then Poet Laureate Mark Strand for Best American Poetry 1991. Another poem "Dream Fox" was featured as poem of the day in Verse Daily (verse.org). Then he was working exclusively on fiction. "The Watchman" won a prize for short story from Mendocino Coast Writers Conference. "Re: Bright Goddess, At Your Rising," another story, was selected for the Florida International University/Books & Books Conference Anthology (online). He died in April, 2012.
Dream Fox
Not the five tiny black birds that flew
out from behind the mirror
over the washstand,
nor the raccoon that crept
out of the hamper,
nor even the opossum that hung
from the ceiling fan
troubled me half so much as
the fox in the bathtub.
There's a wildness in our lives.
We need not look for it.
That's wrong too.
It finds us.
It finds us,
naked and alone,
in unfamiliar bathrooms,
wiping the grit from our eyes,
waiting for the first signs
that we're back among the living.
I catch him beneath his forelegs and lift.
"Don't bite me," I say. Says he, "I'll bite you."
