When the mist
layers the fields
in cotton-wool,
or when pavements
are brilliant
with sleeks of rain
under the street light;
when the snow
silently barricades
every back door
in Barrow Street,
or the wind
force-feeds
the choking gutters
with fallen leaves;
when frost’s tracery
patterns every
branch and blade,
when all the world
is in,
and looking out,
the fox runs.
Fox was previously printed in the publication South.