a fox crawled into a desert yard
with frazzled fur and a broken nose.
looking for a spring or drop of snow,
he dragged along his splintered hope.

across dunes of sand and the valley
of despair, he marched along and sunk
his sins into there: in the sand, he’d tally:
broken dreams and streams out of reach,
and every day his tail drug heaviness
behind his paws, but he marched on
and on
and on