Far


Inland suffers its foxes: full-moon fox, far-flung fox--flung him yonder! went the story--,fox worn like a weasel round the neck, foxes are a simple fact, widespread and local and observable. Vulpes fulva, the common predator, varying in actual color from red to black to rust to tawny brown, pale only in the headlights.


It's that this far inland the appearance of a fox is more reference than metaphor. Or the appearance a demonstration. Sudden appearance, big like an impulse; or the watcher gains a gradual awareness--in the field, taking shape and, finally, familiar. The line of sight's fairly clear leaving imagination little to supply. It's a fact to remember, though, seeing the fox and where or, at night, hearing foxes (and where). The fox appearing, coming into view, as if to meet the speaker.


Push comes to shove. Mistah Fox arriving avec luggage, sans luggage.


C.S. Giscombe, born in Dayton, Ohio, has lived in upstate New York, British Columbia, and downstate Illinois. He teaches in the M.F.A. program at the Pennsylvania State University. His books include Postcards (Ithaca House), At Large (St. Lazaire), Here (Dalkey Archive), Giscombe Road (Dalkey Archive), Two Sections from "Practical Geography" (Diæresis Press), and Into and Out of Dislocation (North Point Press / Farrar, Straus and Giroux).