Is, Is Not by Tess Gallagher

Author:Tess Gallagher [Gallagher, Tess]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-55597-888-4
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Published: 2019-06-10T16:00:00+00:00

FOUR-FOOTED

Silk napkins across our laps

like the sleeves of geisha—we eat

brown bread and salmon with capers

at the lodge on the rim

of the valley. The rumor that slurry

on fields has contaminated

local wells drifts from

our minds. Idyllic countryside

is manufactured here daily

by tourists. We crumple tea-stained

tents near empty plates,

pay our bill, then head for a walk

in a wood planted like a crop

where every tree is identical to its neighbor,

a daylight nightmare. Although

the path is marked, I fear we may

never get out. I follow you

from the dim thicket at last

into a field so open to sky

we forget the land belongs to

anyone. A woman comes out

of her cottage to stare. You wave

and she waves back as we cross

an immense distance to an iron

gate. The road downhill is no

wider than a cart, but something

incomparable has died there—

a red fox, its small perfect teeth just

visible, the blonde undercoat,

and the plume of its once airborne

tail—held in a spell now against

the ground. From the hedge

I draw out an arm’s length

of wood to lift the fox-board

of our sudden death to the side,

sparing indignity. Strange how we

take voices again like two

young girls with a secret

between us, companions

now into old age and

a redundant death.

for Eli Tolaretxipi

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