I imagine this midnight moment's forest:
Something else is
Beside the clock's
And this blank page where my fingers move.
Through the window I see no star:
Something more
Though deeper within
Is entering the loneliness:
Cold, delicately as the dark snowA fox's nose touches twig, leaf;
Two eyes serve a movement, that
And again now, and now, and
Sets neat prints into the
Between trees, and warily a
Shadow lags by stump and in
Of a body that is bold to
Across clearings, an eye,
A widening deepening greenness,
Brilliantly, concentratedly,
Coming about its own
Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of
It enters the dark hole of the head.
The window is starless still; the clock ticks,
The page is printed.
This flaming fox appeared to Hughes in a memorable dream in which it entered Hughes’s room on two feet and walked across his still unfinished essay, leaving a burning paw-print on the paper before turning to Hughes and saying, “You are killing us."
