February.5





The edge of winter flirts with spring. Snowdrops, always bashfully regarding the ground, nod their bonnety heads in a sunny breeze. In the broad-bladed green grass, a fresh kill site; one of our clumsy wood pigeons has become fox food. The feather pile is white and concentrated, like a small pillow has burst, and a few drops of blood remain, still red and wet. Fox has had a late breakfast. Soft pink flesh fastens together some wing tip quills, just a tiny blob of pale pink. I think of pigeon pie, and how I’ve never tried smoked pigeon. I think, poor pigeon, but that’s how the food chain works. You are now part of the fox.



The sun is slipping in and out of clouds, deciding what to wear. Streams of warm and cold catch my ungloved fingers, mostly cold, biting like invisible piranhas. Maybe it was the wind that ate the pigeon and not the fox at all. It brushes at my cheeks, and I think of feathers. 



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