Fox in a Tree Stump

Judith Beveridge

I gripped the branch

and waited in a paddock that ran on

over harder and harder earth.

Leaving me with smoke and the stick

to beat the fox, my uncle drove off.

Terror barrel-rode through my stomach.

I knew my uncle, his quick rabbit-skinning hands,

his arms like dry river-beds dammed at the shoulders,

his voice harsh, kelpie-cursing,

would not understand if I let the fox run to the bush.

Fox-hairs of dust sweated in my palms.

I stood in the exhaust of leaves

the short time it takes a tongue

to reach into a hurting body and strike ashes.

A twig snapped. The fox stood, coughing.

The branch on its neck

rang like a shot:

a shot so loud it shook out a flock

of galahs from their trees,

cracked like a wave

the buried sleep of rabbits.

When my uncle came back, he threw

the charred body into a ditch.

I turned away kicking earth over the bloodspots of fire

and prayed not to waken

another animal from the wheat.

I was nine years old. All my life

I'd stuck close to my yelled name.

I was a child praying for the dark

each time the sun caught my uncle's eye.