A Lone Man & A Lame Fox

A Lone Man and a Lame Fox meet one November night.

The Lone Man longs at his limestone porch as the Lame Fox limps in advantage of the sequestered street.

In the milky cast of the moon, the Lame Fox’s padded paws glister with vital ichor.

Alas,

The Lone Man has nothing but the same blood, diluted with whisky, in his veins.

And so,

As gravity pulls crocodile droplets down the Lone Man’s face,

The Lame Fox limps on.

~

February arrives soon after,

And, with it, a damp dew varnishes the stones of the cobbled streets.

In the interim of Spring’s dawn, the Lone Man emigrates permanently to his limestone porch.

Neighbouring houses ponder over his imprudent partialities,

Be they for his frostbitten toes or his nighttime dwellings.

In any instance, the Lone Man doesn’t seem to feel the briskness in the air,

Or, indeed, the coldness clasping his feet.

He instead remains preoccupied with the clouds,

Heavy as they are.

An upward twitch of the chin signals an inquisition of some kind;

It asks if they were always this low or if the remnants of November’s nocturne weigh them down.

He settles with the knowledge that something,

However incorporeal,

May feel as he does,

May even feel as deprived as he is,

Perhaps too with their empty place settings and shoe racks,

Laundry baskets and bedtime routines.

Little is the Lone Man aware, however, shadowing in the nearby area is but the acquainted Lame Fox;

Peter Piper-ed to the clouds and the moon by the same sorrowful psalm.

He carries the weight of his three kin,

Or else the memory of,

With his remaining limbs.

Quivering as they expectedly may,

The Lame Fox remains stable and stoic with pseudo-paternal liability and little else.

~

It’d be pertinent to note at this time that the Lame Fox has spied the Lone Man a handful of times since their initial meet.

He seems,

As polite onlookers would suggest,

Cautiously tempted by the stillness of his soul.

Other more forward flies on the wall may otherwise argue him to be drawn merely to the scent of uneaten delicacies,

Those left for the lives once lived.

The Lone Man doesn’t appear to detect his presence, however,

Or anything peripheral to his conversation with the clouds for that matter.

And so the Lame Fox continues to limp on in search of solidarity and,

Affection from the paws of pleasure,

Elsewhere.

~

Come June, a cherry pink overlay dyes the neighbourhood for a brief period with petal confetti;

Now relieved of their springtime duties,

The blossoms resign from their inflorescences,

Hitchhiking atop cars or,

Pirouetting with the wind.

They signal a summer of serendipity for most,

Their solstice medicinal for those who wish to be healed.

Yet the Lone Man has still this season to visit their pharmacy;

A paid prescription for rose tinted glasses on loan.

Pessimism justified only through his,

Opaque lens of experience;

To leave one’s home barren and bare for little more than the ground beneath is no honourable stunt.

So the Lone Man vetos their daily dose,

Choosing instead to retire to his boarded four walls.

And it is here the Lone Man stays,

Dust settling atop his stubbled scalp and shoulders,

With a preference only for winter’s earnest return.

~

Presently, the parallel likeness between the man and the fox remains undisputed;

Both lone, both lame,

However circumstanitally different.

The Fox sights the Man across the calendar,

As one does spying a robin in the midst of summer.

‘What are you doing here?’,

His face enquires out of cautious curiosity,

Only to limp on as the Man surrenders another season to his lonesomeness.

The Fox's paws cradle membranes of a lamely travelled path,

As geodes may trap traces of their sedimentary beginnings.

The Man's hands bear calluses,

Formed from the grips of his whisky to his lips,

Moistened only occasionally by smeared salt water.

~

By chance,

In another round of Samsāra,

They’ll cross paths as likeminded beings again.

An ignorantly blind reliance on the divine,

But one could imagine a time when their souls do align,

A metempsychosis of some kind.

It'll be here the Lame Fox twitches his snout up to the Lone Man once more,

His features narrowly noticeable in the burrow of inquisitive eyes.

They’ll ask who he lost on his way to his

Lonesome languish.

Finally, the Lone Man may put aside his seated skeletons and weighted clouds to appease the Lame Fox’s curiosity at his limestone porch.

In the comfort of inconsequential company, their lameness and loneness may heal,

And, with it,

The cherry pink petaled confetti of Spring's dawn may well regain an old admirer.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A very very rushed piece but one i've been meaning to write for quite some time.

I dedicate it to a neighbour of mine who fed a lame fox on our street one winter's eve. A year or so later, and our quiet little stone cobbled area becomes a flurry of activity each night as fox families gather to his porch.

Growing up, I was always terrified of foxes. Perhaps it's their dog-like uncanniness, or simply the fact I'd only ever see them when the street lamps came on.

My neighbour’s kindness and their kindred characters, though, only ever make me feel warm now. They remind me of the likeness we share as sentient beings by simply being. They remind me of what it means to rely on one another wholly. And, most importantly, that it may well mean we're all a little less lame or lone in life if we do.