First I found the trapped fox and then we let it go 
and I wrote a poem about that and then in my weekly 
online writing group Pamela in Scotland says your fox 
poem reminds me of Ted Hughes’ animal poems
and I think cool and then I read a poem in the LRB 
written by Nick Laird about praying with his little boy 
and I like it so much I order his book Go Giants and
I print up his bio admiring his amazing hair envious 
 
that his hair’s thicker than mine and then my brother dies 
and it’s the second worst day of my life and I need to think 
I have to think the fox that gorgeous beast appeared 
a few days earlier to guide him to an afterlife and I 
keep thinking of metaphors about cages and freedom 
from his schizophrenia and then my husband’s employer
sends me sympathy flowers from a company named 
Foxglove see another fox and then 
 
I solve a Wordle to subdue my traumatic responses 
to my brother’s death and the word is SNARL 
which is what I thought that trapped fox would have done 
like a dog but didn’t but it is what I feel like doing
some of the time or bingeing shows or snacking or doing 
nothing and then I see a book by Julian Barnes on top 
of my stack of books at the top of the stairs so I start 
to read it since I’d meant to for years because 
I love his books and Ted Hughes 
 
is mentioned in the first chapter now more Ted Hughes
so I figure it is high time I read more of his poetry but
his collected work is so thick it’s a brick on my shelf 
instead I look up his work online and the first poem 
is about a fox what 

what’s with all these foxes and there’s a hyphen 
in his title so I add one to mine because it needed one 
I see that now and then I receive that book by Nick Laird 
in the mail and he gives credit to Julian Barnes for a couple 
of lines and then I receive an unexpected parcel 

in the mail with Billy Collins’ new book Musical Tables
inside and in the front he quotes a line 
by Nick Laird more Nick see these mystifying links between 
Hughes Barnes Laird and Collins and then my friend 
in Manhattan texts me a photo he took of a window display 
full of stuffed toy foxes see more foxes but these are dressed 
in plaid after Macy’s unveiled their windows for Christmas ’22
 
and then I see a new photo online of Billy Collins 
giving a reading for his new book wearing a scarf with 
illustrated foxes on it more Collins more foxes and 
a few days later he mentioned on his poetry broadcast 
that the Prairie Home Companion Christmas Show would be 
playing that night so I tune in virtually and Garrison Keillor 
welcomes everyone to The Fabulous Fox Theater more foxes 	

still plus the brass fox door knocker Ada Limón just posted 
on Insta my God how many more fox sightings are there 
going to be in my future it wasn’t my brother’s style 
to pester me like this I have no answers and yet I thank 
the gods for each and every reminder of that 
living warm animal my husband and I let go which may 
who knows be the thing that peacefully accompanied him 
 
to some afterlife and now it’s 3AM where all this stuff is 
swirling in my thoughts like pistachio-colored seed saucers 
that I used to watch from a bridge caught in the local river’s eddy 
on my early morning walks hoping to clear my head which 
sometimes worked or didn’t and I just lie here thinking 
about pistachio-green and how its complimentary color 
is a certain shade of purple and then I think of purple hearts 
 
and how valiant my brother was see my brother and then 
I recall the framed album cover I gave him of a vinyl record 
we used to play The Valiant Little Tailor because Taylor is 
our family name and I remember how he was his own kind
of sixty-three-year-old soldier rescuing his other 
selves for decades from battlefields that were visible 
to him but not to me no matter how hard I squinted.