The Fox

This constant changing. Strange, new—honey locust

making a copper carpet on the grass.

A wave is rolling underneath: the past

gets bigger, different. More, and more, and less

myself. Dreaming today, I took a fox

to safety, though he struggled. Corridor

of green. Limited vistas, choices. Luck

runs out. Runs in. A constant guest, a floor

of coins. The fox wanted to fight

a dog: big, yellow, angry. No escape

but luck, that corridor. Now I am tight

within myself again. Wait for the wave,

the constant stranger, coming from below—

a fold the future makes inside my clothes.

Liam O’Brien grew up on a small island outside Seattle. Some of his work can be found in Blackbird VCU, Buffalo Almanack, Industrial Lunch, PBS Newshour, the HIV Here & Now Project, and New South. He recently completed his MFA at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where he was an Iowa Arts Fellow. He is one of the founding editors of Vetch: A Magazine of Trans Poetry & Poetics.