Smoke and Mirrors

carrying a bag,

from which he took a mattock, shovel, knife.

He worked with a will, beside the thornbush,

beneath the oaken tree,

he whistled gently, and he sang, as he dug her grave,

that old song . . .

Shall I sing it for you, now, good folk?”

She pauses, and as a one we clap and we holloa

—or almost as a one:

My intended, her hair so dark, her cheeks so pink,

her lips so red,

seems distracted.

The fair girl (Who is she? A guest of the inn, I hazard) sings:

“A fox went out on a shiny night

And he begged for the moon to give him light

For he’d many miles to go that night

Before he’d reach his den-O!

Den-O! Den-O!

He’d many miles to go that night, before he’d reach his den-O.”

Her voice is sweet and fine, but the voice of my intended is finer.

“And when her grave was dug—

A small hole it was, for she was a little thing,

even big with child she was a little thing—

he walked below her, back and a forth,

rehearsing her hearsing, thus:

— Good evening, my pigsnie, my love,

my, but you look a treat in the moon’s light,

mother of my child-to-be. Come, let me hold you.

And he’d embrace the midnight air with one hand,

and with the other, holding his short but wicked knife,

he’d stab and stab the dark.

“She trembled in her oak above him. Breathed so softly,

but still she shook. And once he looked up and said,

—Owls, I’ll wager, and another time, Fie! Is that a cat

up there? Here, puss . . . But she was still,

bethought herself a branch, a leaf, a twig. At dawn

he took his mattock, spade, and knife and left

all grumbling and gudgeoned of his prey.

“They found her later wandering, her wits

had left her. There were oak leaves in her hair,

and she sang:

The bough did bend

The bough did break

I saw the hole

The fox did make

We swore to love

We swore to marry

I saw the blade

The fox did carry

“They say that her babe, when it was born,

had a fox’s paw on her and not a hand.

Fear is the sculptress, midwives claim. The scholar fled.”

And she sits down, to general applause.

The smile twitches, hides about her lips: I know it’s there,

it waits in her gray eyes. She stares at me, amused.

“I read that in the Orient foxes follow priests and scholars,

in disguise as women, houses, mountains, gods, processions,

always discovered by their tails—” so I begin,

but my intended’s father intercedes.

“Speaking of tales—my dear, you said you had a tale?”

My intended flushes. There are no rose petals,

save for her cheeks. She nods and says:

“My story, Father? My story is the story of a dream I dreamed.”

Her voice is so quiet and soft, we hush ourselves to hear,

outside the inn just the night sounds: An owl hoots,

but, as the old folk say, I live too near the wood

to be frightened by an owl.

She looks at me.

“You, sir. In my dream you rode to me, and called,

—Come to my house, my sweet, away down the white road.

There are such sights I would show you.

I asked how I would find your house, down the white chalk road,

for it’s a long road, and a dark one, under trees

that make the light all green and gold when the sun is high,

but shade the road at other times. At night

it’s pitch-black; there is no moonlight on the white road . . .

“And you said, Mister Fox—and this is most curious, but dreams

are treacherous and curious and dark—

that you would cut the throat of a sow pig,

and you would walk her home behind your fine black stallion.

You smiled,

smiled, Mister Fox, with your red lips and your green eyes,

eyes that could snare a maiden’s soul, and your yellow teeth,

which could eat her heart—”

“God forbid,” I smiled. All eyes were on me then, not her,

though hers was the story. Eyes, such eyes.

“So, in my dream, it became my fancy to visit your great house,

as you had so often entreated me to do,

to walk its glades and paths, to see the pools,

the statues you had brought from Greece, the yews,

the poplar walk, the grotto, and the bower.

And, as this was but a dream, I did not wish

to take a chaperone

—some withered, juiceless prune

who would not appreciate your house, Mister Fox; who

would not appreciate your pale skin,

nor your green eyes,

nor your engaging ways.

“So I rode the white chalk road, following the red blood path,

on Betsy, my filly. The trees above were green.

A dozen miles straight, and then the blood

led me off across meadows, over ditches, down a gravel path

(but now I needed sharp eyes to catch the blood—

a drip, a drop: The pig must have been dead as anything),

and I reined my filly in front of a house.

And such a house. A palladian delight, immense,

a landscape of its own, windows, columns,

a white stone monument to verticality, expansive.

“There was a sculpture in the garden, before the house,

A Spartan child, stolen fox half-concealed in its robe,

the fox biting the child’s stomach, gnawing the vitals away,

the stoic child bravely saying nothing—

what could it say, cold marble that it was?

There was pain in its eyes, and it stood,

upon a plinth on which were carved eight words.

I walked around it, and I read:

Be bold,

be bold,

but not too bold.

“I tethered little Betsy in the stables,

between a dozen night black stallions

each with blood and madness in his eyes.

I saw no one.

I walked to the front of the house and up the great steps.

The huge doors were locked fast,

no servants came to greet me when I knocked.

In my dream (for do not forget, Mister Fox, that this was

my dream. You look so pale) the house fascinated me,

the kind of curiosity (you know this,

Mister Fox, I see it in your eyes) that kills

cats.

“I found a door, a small door, off the latch,

and pushed my way inside.

Walked corridors, lined with oak, with shelves,

with busts, with trinkets,

I walked, my feet silent on the scarlet carpet,

until I reached the great hall.

It was there again, in red stones that glittered,