Fox in the morning

The grey fox, so called actually the color of wet sand here on the Cape, pads daintily past the herb garden. See, I murmur to her or him, you still exist. I argued with a park biologist you hadn't died out here. I've seen you eating wild grapes near the dunes. I watched your kits run up pitch pines for safety. Even with the coywolves hunting you and the red fox claiming your territory you are at home where you belong, stopping to check out birdseed we scattered on needles, left- over cashews you gobble. You move like the wind through dead grasses snow has not yet flattened and vanish brush of tail last.