Tryst

Before the fox leaps,
I catch a glimpse of the vole
dining in the night weeds.
How he gambles
everything he has—
A small sum of flesh.
A prized clover.
Overhead, the pinking sky's
cloudwork spreads and sets his hunger going, despite
what he knows
is frozen in the high fields.
If he's lucky, evening
comes. And he dives
back to his hole,
more alive than before—thinking
only how he loves
to live and die so close
to those striking foxes,
and asks
nothing, nothing
of his brief heart.
-R.K. Fauth