Liana Kapelke-Dale: the taming

the taming

You, on your part, have no need of me. To you I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world. —Antoine de Saint Exupéry

​i walk one morning while it's still dark
watch the big dipper as i make
my way over to the boulevard a few streets
from my house and as the light wrings the last
of the damp darkness from the night
i see three baby foxes dancing in the spotlight
of a streetlamp no longer touched by human hands
human hands human hands human
they’re too young to fear human hands
or human feet as they foxtrot towards me
and make maypoles from my legs
and i think of how humans gave up on magic long ago

​it is a release to be so joyful
without having to try
i am already what they need me to be

​once long ago i wore fur but not fur coats
i wore a foxtail and ears made from fox fur
and i preened before the twisted mirror
bending and opening to show the internet
how enticing i was how valuable how desirable
bid on me now gentlemen

​and i didn't think about the fox whose tail i stole
i only thought of myself as goods
for sale in a box with a tomato-red bow

​but when you kill a fox
its magic dissipates into the ether and clouds over
the big dipper which once was as clear
as a crystal bell but now its sound has been muffled
as if by a gun with a silencer

​and i am an empty box with a pretty bow
and my magic has run away from home

​and i hold the fox's tail in my hands
i think about my little trinity of baby foxes
how not even they could tame me or keep me

because i was not what they needed after all
and they were much more valuable than i

Liana Kapelke-Dale is a poet and ATA Certified Translator (Spanish to English). She is the author of the full-length collection Seeking the Pink (Kelsay Books) as well as two poetry chapbooks. Her poetry has been featured in myriad journals and anthologies, and she has work forthcoming in The Quarter(ly) Journal and Resurrection Magazine. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish Language and Literature from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a Juris Doctor from the University of Wisconsin Law School. Liana lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with her lovely pointer-hound mix, Poet.