(after Al Alvarez)
Skirmishes, furtive scuffling in the gardens,
furred burglaries. Unearthly wails of cats on heat.
Behind the house, a strip of railway land
where foxes drag their salvage from the street –
the bramble-sheltered brood… Crows pick up the pieces,
dropping scraps of bone that suddenly materialize
on balconies, on patios and paths.
And the London night is full of cries –
not love-cries, no, but need, need.
Although we cannot know their lives
their nocturnal mission has to be: feed or breed,
or both. Foxes are out on the Heath; they sniff the air like knives –
Al’s Hampstead Heath, that was. I watch them
jinking down our street at 2 a.m.,
laser-stares caught in the headlights of a passing car.
How much more graceful, beautiful, they are
than us, on the trail of what will serve… At our bedroom window
one winter morning, daydreaming for us both
I saw a vixen looking up at me – in hope, perhaps?
I ran to throw her leftovers, aiming for the undergrowth
where she could sniff them out. She sniffed
and found and scarfed them down, I threw more, she
looked up again, this time – I told myself – with gratitude.
I rushed to tell you… Midwinter now, barely
one year on from when you left, and last night
in bed I listened to their barks and screams till dawn.
Whatever they meant, it was longing I heard,
unappeasable, beyond words, and my own, I could have sworn.
