So it warms to be rid of us.
Little leverets grown
long-limbed, we’ve spread too far, so a fox is sent.
But the fox is us, too, culling us even as we starve
from the abundance of us.
*
There is a price I’ve exacted
to live—a shadow in which nothing else could grow—
but since I’m here I’d love.
Not in some time
come or gone, but only now
while what owns us
lets us, before it burns us off like ticks.