Prose poem: kelly gray
Fox
In my dream I was a grey fox with a rabbit in my mouth. I could sense my human form in how much I had to stretch my jaw to hold this limp warm body, all the fear twitching between my teeth and tongue, hair in the back of my throat. I was walking past the cypress line to where the tall grasses grow and I could see a sliver of my human skin beneath a paw pad. There in the pressed grass was a family of deer, I could hear two heartbeats. The mama deer twitched her ears against a scent, and having failed many fawns in seasons past, she kept her eyes wide and legs bent under her. I looked at her, but we are not friends, we only inhabit the same space. But I recognized the look in her eyes as sounds larger than loss swirl around us.
In my dream the trees are talking to me, telling me to drop further to the ground, to take off my human clothes and stitch on this fox skin around me. My human body is old and smells like people I don’t know. I place the rabbit aside and start to sew. First the fox ears, so I can hear where I am going. Then the legs, tightly, with beautiful stitching, so they don’t get loose as I run and all the prey I chase will admire them. Then the tail, which is hard to get on correctly because of the bushy shape but I do, and I even hide the seam. I pick up the rabbit. Then I start off again, through the mud, tightening my narrow jaw around my catch as the trees begin to smile.
about the writer: kelly gray
Kelly Gray is a naturalist and birth educator living among the redwoods on occupied Coast Miwok land in Northern California. She is mother to a fiery daughter, two perfect cats and one untamable dog. Her writing uses magical realism to dig into the tensions between loss and survival and what it means to decenter the human narrative during cycles of darkness and light. She has been published in Squat, the anthology Birth Work as Care Work; Stories From Activist Birth Communities, and was a Cal Arts Scholar for creative writing. On her day off, Kelly is a raptor handler who brings birds of prey into schools and public events, telling stories of falcons, owls and vultures to all who will listen.
IG handle: @_west_of_west
