Poetry By Tracey Watts
sestina for fox in a field of snow
the field lies empty, save for snow and an indeterminate shape in the distance, fox-like, or actually a fox
perhaps, out foxing, as foxes do. i might eclipse upon the shape, look closely, were i to abandon
my viewpoint, but sometimes point of view is all i have. instead, i raise two fingers of my hand.
i nearly wave. the fox, fox-like, it tilts its head, uncertain of the context
of the gesture. a greeting? threat? an invitation? i can only offer ciphers, shapes, a lyric
wrought with impressions, not enough words, never the right words, so much still lost in the translation.
i try to read the field, but the field has been emptied of referents. the translation
hesitates, the white space daunting, untranslatable, incomplete. make notes in the margins, suggests the fox.
do you sometimes scribble in your books? i ask, because i do. i won’t disrupt a lyric
but i’ll make fields of hearts and asterisks. i clarify what needs clarification. some time ago, i abandoned
the notion that stories had only the single author. my best frame of reference is dialog, context,
cake layers of meaning. vanilla? strawberry? rhubarb? would you like to try some? i open my hand.
inside the hand is a door, and then the hand also has food in it. it is full, my hand,
full and cold. it hurts. it is cold out, and the door in my hand opens to a room with no back wall. no translation
exists to explain what i have offered the fox in this empty field. it is purposefully vague, this invitation.
it’s only cake, i explain, everyone likes cake. the fox comes closer, flicks his tail and sniffs the air. more context,
he prods. what is that other thing, the thing drawn in your hand? where does it lead? asks the fox.
he sniffs again. something is turning around. i can smell it too. i don’t know, i admit, i abandoned
the urge to define it at some point. it is a door, though. i know that much. sometimes it offers a lyric
if i reach through the door with the right intention. sometimes it’s on point, the lyric,
sometimes only vaguely relevant, sometimes overly effusive. i shuffle my free hand
around in my pocket. i may have an old one lying around, i say, you could read it. they’re just scraps, abandoned
structures of feeling searching for application in a world without clear referents or frames. does that translate?
the fox smiles, is fox-like with his flickery tail. it is not an answer. you have a door in your hand, concludes the fox.
yes, i say, a door. a door and cake. but the cake is tasty. i’ve scribbled hearts all over the margins, but that context
is unimportant. the fox hmms. context is always important, he says, context portends future events. context
explains the larger story. i want to disagree, but i do not in fact disagree. so i say instead, yes, but the lyric
i’m holding is untranslatable, and i’m afraid there’s no margin for error. i would like to tell you a story about foxes.
in fact, i’m certain that there are many wonderful stories i could tell about foxes, but the lyric in my free hand
is only a recipe for cake, a cake with yellow hearts scribbled in the margins, and this translation
is largely a list of ingredients that i’ve alternately embraced and abandoned
over years of trying to perfect the baking or saying or presenting of this thing. here, this is what i’ve abandoned:
pretense, saying sorry for the sake of saying sorry, drinking too much, obligatory visits, outgrown contexts
that no longer explain my phenomena, and abandonment. i have abandoned abandonment and have translated
it instead into something substantive, a sort of vibrant witnessing, a house of bliss. here, i think i have the lyric
for that one, i say, and i reach into the sworl of the door in my hand. the pattern of the door unlocks, and my hand
opens with words like a drawer. read it, says the fox.
the things i’ve embraced defy translation. they arrive like breakers on the shore, frothed with foam. they abandon
pattern and rhythm and timing; even a fox couldn’t predict their arrivals. the only foreseeable context
is that they always arrive, the lyric always waxing on about love, and i collect every word in my warm, wet hands.
fox tuesday
fox tuesday
collects miscellanea,
a pleasure of insubordinate text.
disparate words, a shelf
of marvels.
maybe a continental shelf.
things that subduct, subducting.
in increments, forces push
things
together.
a pleasure of text. perhaps
a flamboyance:
flamingos, also terribly noisy
also a joyful insubordination
of pink noise
effusive and alive.
i would also add:
rainwater
seashells, grit, the smell of horses
without having to ride them.
you may think that i have forgotten about
foxes
but no. this is only
the tuesday section
when i collect miscellanea.
fox wednesday
and i collect voices.
i wonder what it sounds like
to turn on
the sjónvarp útvarp
other pink flamboyances
of noise.
or maybe forvitni
though i did not intend to veer
into abstraction so soon.
maybe hugmynd
which sounds like a thought
to fold into.
maybe hönd
but to turn this one over
perhaps, not quite on
or not yet but
to ask what it looks like
on the inside
when it holds something.
fox thursday
still the heady hum of voices
but i think we need a fox in here.
i like it best when fox
leaves words on my doorstep.
my dog does this too
but with possums
my cat with lizards.
i prefer the words.
fox is
prescient, knows what sounds
i will like. fox entombs,
conflates, makes remonstrations
or perhaps simply names
my remonstrations
as such
since that’s kind of
what they are.
allavega,
fox is not a philistine though he may say
that he presents as one.
however, this would be
a terrible
misreading.
there is no fox on friday in this poem.
friday is when i am often writing
to fox. fridays are
tiring. even the sounds
in my own language
fail to cohere.
the worst of subductions,
everything crashing
in swollen increments. i sometimes
sleep early
on fridays.
fox saturday
is more rested,
asks please to become a poem.
okay, i say: one should never
refuse what saturday
requests.
i will give fox my words this time, but not
the usual retinue:
my ephemera, my litany, my esoterica.
instead a different page from the
atlas obscura:
a chimera perhaps, to populate
his cities of myth.
maybe cephalopod: things
that change color while dreaming.
maybe abalone dreams.
maybe halcyon
with its gauzy midafternoon haze,
its effusive
and insubordinate plumage
with its calm winds
that wind out exquisitely
over my sea
