Of Paper Moons, Foxes, and Blood Oranges
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Of Paper Moons, Foxes, and Blood Oranges
Daniel Henry Rodgers
"Grief moves like a fox through snow—
silent, elusive, and always returning for
there are places only memory can trespass."
- Poet
====================================
I. Sighting
I saw you
through refracted light-
a prism of chance
splitting ordinary into spectrum.
Wind-tangled hair
terra cotta and rosemary beneath your nails
the scent of soil and citrus on your skin.
You carried mysteries-living things
I wanted to cradle.
I didn’t find you-
you found me
tracking laughter’s ghost
through the market’s crush
your eyes mapping longitudes on my wrist
before your hands ever dared.
You sat,
quiet defiance in denim and chipped polish.
The dreamer in you claimed territory
in my chest,
while you remained
unaware.
The dreamer in me surrendered-
with the awe of old cartographers
gazing at blank edges
where monsters might dwell
and the world unspools
into wonder.
II. Re-inked Skin of Ghostly Narratives
Was it then-
the blood orange?
Memory insists:
a vendor near the station
strangers colliding in stream.
First bite:
sun-warm reckless juice
streaking my chin
staining my shirt-
testament I wore all day.
At thirty-three,
dumbfounded by how little I understood
of hunger-
how desire redraws the map
of intention.
Yesterday and tomorrow
collapsed
into a trembling bite:
an unexpected azimuth
for all future calculations.
Your darkness peopled with ghosts.
Your mind: perpetually Monday—
always beginning again from broken pieces
an archaeologist
palming fragments
without knowing the vessel’s shape.
Above your bed,
paper moons taped to the ceiling
watched over sleep.
Your nightmares’ guttural language
translated itself into my tongue
until I could not tell
what you dreamed
from what I feared.
You wanted sacred geometry,
cathedral symmetry.
I wanted forbidden texts
the ashes of burnt libraries
hidden in soot-rubbed satchels
Yet in this stratigraphy of contradictions,
we excavated each other-
layer by trembling layer.
III. Vulpine
When the earth opened its mouth
to claim you,
why didn’t I dissolve-
become mist,
untraceable?
Why did I kneel
at the precipice
offering myself for judgment
accepting the verdict
before the plea?
That night,
a fox-
russet ghost at the periphery
too clever for direct vision.
Just as you exist now:
resistant to straight perception
visible only in sidelong remembrance.
My hands,
stronger than my voice
released what bound us.
Final threads unwound
from my throat-
the last evidence
separating me
from the underworld
where memory fractures
and time unspools.
Or perhaps I never released you.
Perhaps you slipped
through my fingers-
like water,
like time,
like certainty.
Some mornings,
fox prints scatter the snow
toward and away from my door-
evidence of visitation
I cannot verify.
Somewhere in the numbness,
our parallel futures
attempt to manifest.
I look up-
expecting your voice urgent as prophecy
to illuminate my darkness.
Then:
only blank pages.
Three winters emptied
A narrative.
Your story.
My story.
Unwritten chapters.
But when I close my eyes,
you are tomorrow-
not yesterday.
IV. Nocturnal Territories
In midnight solitude:
something else breathes
beyond the mechanical heartbeat
of seconds
and the blue-lit thrushsong
trembling beneath my hand.
Through the window,
no constellation-
only something more intimate
buried in shadow
infiltrating isolation:
A fox moves
through brittle undergrowth-
the silken of paws
amber eyes
serving movement
that now
and again now
and again-
leaves delicate evidence
in softened earth.
Watchful shadows pause
between heartbeats
the bold geometry of a being
claiming space
across invisible boundaries.
Concentrated brilliance in motion,
attending to what matters until-
with the sharp, unmistakable presence
of wildness-
it enters me:
amber eyes reflecting firelight,
russet fur carrying the scent
of earth and blood orange,
careful paws printing
the soft terrain of memory.
I recognize you in this creature’s deliberate progress-
the way it navigates darkness
without fear
the way it exists
fully in its knowing.
No absence more hollow,
no loss more severe.
You were sanctuary
a magnificent archway
where the fragile could shelter.
Your creative arc still ascending-
a comet whose trajectory
I can no longer track.
With your departure,
the veil between worlds
thins.
Yet meaning persists-
like fox prints in new snow
like the scent of blood oranges in December
like the cartography of desire
redrawn each night
as I trace constellations
of our brief convergence.
I didn’t find you-
you found me.
And having been found
I cannot return
to who I was
before you taught me
to see what exists
beyond the mapped territories,
in the wilderness
where a fox’s eyes
are both warning and welcome-
pawprints
vanishing
in the vulpinity
of first light.
Copyright © Daniel Henry Rodgers | Year Posted 2025
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