Skinning the Fox • Against Salvation
Still dark out when my father pulls
the trigger. The air rings like a bell
after the gunshot as if purified
by sound.
Only Enoch and Elijah
got to leave this world alive
he tells me, hours later, large
hands shaving skin from pink
meat—the fox, its body strung
between us, rope cinched
around a slender foot.
The body sways as he slices,
an inconsistent pendulum
marking time it will not see;
it wiggles—playful, almost
dancing with skin turned
down, the skirts of girls
on playgrounds after church.
He says, Please understand
I had to shoot it. And I do.
The fox was wreaking havoc
in the hen house, the goat pen,
stealing chickens and killing kids.
My father tried to be humane.
Set traps, built better fences—
he tried. And each dawn
mocked his efforts
with the awful fuss of death.
I help him stretch the pelt
across the rack, ribbon guts
into a bucket, scrub stray blood
from the floor. He tried. I know,
I say. But did we have to skin it?
No, he tells me. No,
That’s not the point.
“I have wasted my life.” –James Wright
if beauty is a sin give me
beautyif gluttony
a fork and knife
let me drink the sweet water
of youth’s fountain while
youngwaste it
deliciously gulp every
brief dropno going
backno turning
unless it’s into a pillar
of saltif sloth
give me the luxury
of convenience and a woman
to decay with
of angels and their offices
I want no partexcept maybe
those who lusted
desired more or anything
other than an eternity of peace
golden palaces with pearl
-laid streetsgold bores
mepeace bores
I cannot eat a pearl
if I must confess and repent
to enter paradiseI confess
I don’t want itI repent
of nothingbut the time
spent fearing holy wrathgold
pearls, saints, paradise sounds
like it would bore me
if Heaven is a paradise
I will face god and dance
backwards into Hell
which can’t be that much
worse than Alabama
if eternal life is what I lose
for loving hergive me
herand the quick burn
of mortalityand
if mortality is a curse
o god I beg of you
curse mecurse me
curse meforever and ever amen
Edited by Emilie Menzel and Jerica Taylor.
The header image is an excerpt from "Metes and Bounds," created by Ellen Wiener, featured artist for the winter edition of Issue 16: Proximities.
