Robin Knight writes about his poem, Vulpine Nature: Our village, to the east of Brighton (UK), was built in the 1920s on virgin downland – the realm of foxes which now express their very particular nature in a suburban context. The theft of my shoe (a common occurrence) and my greater appreciation of it on retrieval put me in mind of Kintsugi, but instead of gold, the fox had used its essence to improve the object.
Vulpine Nature
The fox that lives under the shed
took one of the clogs my sister gave me
when she lived in den Helder,
before she divorced.
The ones we paid so much to re-sole.
The neighbour said a fox
stole a loaf from his kitchen
under his nose,
so I’m not surprised.
I went looking for the clog.
It wasn’t in the rhubarb
or the potatoes,
it wasn’t down the side
of the shed, nor at the back,
where his rich scent
marks the hole.
I found the clog
under a laurel,
between the fence
and the greenhouse:
tooth marked, rank,
but serviceable.
The dearer
for its abduction.
Robin Knight
Robin Knight is a mixed race novelist, children’s writer, poet, and features writer, based in Brighton, Sussex & published in the UK, Europe & the US by: The History Press, Psychologies Magazine, True West, SOUTH, Artificium, Beyond Words, The Dewdrop, Imprimo, The Whirlwind, Halfway Down The Stairs, Signo, Visual Verse, Poetry for the People and others in anthology. He was acknowledged in the UK’s National Poetry Competition in 2015 & 2017.