Issue 2: J.P. Dancing Bear

Gacela of the Foxes

for Ryan G. Van Cleave

You sleep in the warmth of a den of foxes
under the brush and the song of grass
and you know in this world you must use teeth
and wits to defend and to provide.

You don’t want to be this mathematical
in the red calculations of us or them.
You don’t want be that clever machine in the grass
with the moonlit chicken coop so close.

You have to think of the den, and the ones
who would hunt you with cousin dogs.
You want the grass to cover your reds with greens
black in the silvery light, because the moon

is an egg—the goddess of all eggs—the big catch
taunting you to feed your den with it;
you wear that every night you hunt
and return with something smaller than its circumference.

You are the slinking red in the landscape’s dream
playing with your den mates, teaching them
not to be only what others see and say them to be—
but to be red joy, red play, red laughter, among the tall grass.

--J.P. Dancing Bear

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