Where new writing finds its voice
Poem

fox watcher on island road

Michael Egan

of rumours of foxes     signs of their coming in wet morning mud
the pawed at and scavenged for evening     he pulls out dinner scraps 
from the kitchen bin     fills a tesco bag     meat     bare bones 
and browning mince     his red football cap     his father’s toolbox torch
taped there     to peer     in the night     at the foxes he knows are waiting
meat scattered     around the park’s boundary beside bollards and hedges
joggers and late-shift workers don’t see him flinging bones
hiding in bushes     searching for russet flashes     birds peck at his fox-bait
mingled amongst the rotting meat of weeks past     here in the shadows 
between branches are beetles and moths     strange striped arachnids
bide their hunger     but his foxes never come     just rumours that’s all
they tell him there are many stray dogs around the park hungry for meat
his torch shows thousands of eyes     staring back     I’m here till morning
he tells me     lighting his cigarette passes my matches back     those eyes
there are so many   watching me all night     offers me some meat from his bag.