Of Ice and Remembrance By Mara Buck

A white fox stands in arctic snow, the full moon alert above his shoulder, and I see only his eyes, onyx jewels reflecting my image. We stare and my own eyes adjust and details appear, blue shadows on the snow, a tinge of umber on his underbelly, the hint of dried blood on his muzzle, forepaws — or maybe I’m mistaken. I lie here naked, pale skin paler by cold, my blood retreated into my core, my hair –whitened by time — whispering about my ears in the windchill, my eyes faded by age and misuse. Is their light too dimmed for reflection? Does the fox see himself in me as I in him? On my person there is no clue of a final meal, no remnants of activity, and my feet have left no footprints on this frozen world. I can only wait.

He stares into my eyes, fascinated by his own perfection. He approaches with the halting grace of a Nureyev and he closes his teeth over my ankle. His teeth break into a cacophony of tinkling ivory because I am frozen solid as marble.

© 2014 Mara Buck

Mara Buck writes and paints in the Maine woods. She has won awards or been short-listed by the Faulkner Society, the Hackney Awards, Carpe Articulum, Maravillosa, with work in Drunken Boat, Huffington Post, Crack the Spine, Apocrypha and Abstractions, Carpe Articulum, Living Waters, Orion, Pithead Chapel, Caper, Clarke’s, Poems For Haiti, The Lake, and others. @Mara_Buck

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