Alive as a Fox

I sat in the shade eating an orange
While drinking some foreign gin.
A fox was foraging in the desolate brush
That scattered about the stream in the gorge.
I poured more gin.
The fox looked forlorn just when…

A horrid sound split the air
As a torrent of lead shot out
From the gun of a man on the shore
Unsure of whether he had scored a kill.

The fox bled,
And I sprung up over this sordid affair
With face gone red
And a fifth of gin gone straight to my head.

I said with torn jacket in hand
And scorn in my voice for the
Scourge who scattered the brains of the scavenger,
“Be warned.
For although the fox lies dead, and you stand alive
Above the creature who met his demise before your own eyes,
It is he, not you, that won the prize
Of salvation from yearning.”

I wasn’t mourning,
But the sunrise reminded me of the word.
The man claimed the animal corpse.
It looked like the jacket he wore.
I didn’t pay him anymore attention.

Nor did I mention this
To the woman I was courting,
Around whose body I was cavorting
While it was still contorting.
The poor thing.
She was barely fourteen.
Now only her skin can keep a man warm.