The scare tactics of the hare are not lost on the fox:
tight circles going nowhere in a trapeze of light
as though the spoor that leads to a mating season
were sleight-of-hand in a hand-me-down winter coat.
A ditch is a busted suitcase filled with moonlight,
a roadkill quoll its strewn contents.
The hare is shadow-boxing with itself in a squall
of intention, up on its feet to uppercut a rival.
The fox needs no introduction, but when it steps out
into the spotted wreckage of a death in headlight glass,
it barks as the hare ducks and weaves to make a leveret.
Straw, straw, the little raven clawhammers a dirge
over alder trees stripped to a dieback of welcome.
In the overtaking lanes of endangerment, the wind
through Triabunna cranes is a mongrel.
The loading docks of the hunting lodge are skinned
to the foundations. The dinner table surface
of a sawn-off sassafras is ringed as a sawmill blade.
The fox and the hare square off like a magic trick.
A double take is a hawk and its shadow at work.