The Dream of February

I In the moonlight, in the heavy snow, I was hunting along the sunken road and heard behind me the quiet step and smothered whimper of something following . . . Ah, tree of panic I climbed to escape the night, as the furry body glided beneath, lynx with steady gaze, and began the slow ascent. II And dark blue foxes climbed beside me with famished eyes that glowed in the shadows; I stabbed with a sharpened stick until one lay across the path with entrails spilled, and the others melted away. The dead fox moved again, his jaws released the sound of speech. III Slowly I toiled up the rotting stairs to the cemetery where my mother lay buried, to find the open grave with the coffin tilted beside it, and something spilled from the bottom— a whiteness that flowed on the ground and froze into mist that enveloped the world.