WOUNDED FOX ON ALL SOULS LAND

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

It limps across the road in that bashful

way of an injured animal. He must

have had a terrible night, as morning

mists over the flooded gravel pits by

the Devil's Quoits. I worry for him

and details can be checked so I

daren’t cheat when writing this.

---

A landfill site alongside makes

the lake perfect, owned by All Souls.

A joke of a place, I dreamt of being

a Fellow - like T E Lawrence, also

Jesus - then one night I burgled

and found galleries of lanyards,

notes on oak desks reading 'WFH'.

---

The RSPCA called me about

my fox. He’s made it and now

wants to meet. Makes

no sense, I know all the

paths around the lake

but prefer not being

watched, if they track

---

struggling animals -

our wary movements.

Anyway I drove back,

left him Jaffa Cakes

then got a note:

'I'm carnivore, you daft fuck.'

I'll cheat again. The mists clear how

---

I loved solutions from inorganic days.

Magnetic stirrers rattling like landfill

lorries then the jumps to clarity from

aqueous ions of some transition

metal - I could name them all.

How many Fellows of All Souls

can do that? Fewer still.