Will Reger
Winter 2023 | Poetry
You Sat in Your
Backyard
Carefully unaware of a fox watching
You arrange your few items
On a small table near your chair.
That fox says nothing untoward
When you cram the dry wash cloth
So deep into your mouth you gag,
And then, in your growing agitation,
You pull a plastic bag down over
Your head and tape it shut with duct
Tape—the fox says nothing.
Maybe it pricks up its ears
When you struggle for air.
Maybe it yips when you realize
Your mistake and claw at the bag,
To make a life-saving hole in it.
But you finally go still and the fox,
Before your mother comes home
To find you bug-eyed in the grass,
May have slinked across the yard
To sniff at your body or lick one
Of your red-painted toes.
This was a human thing
beyond her understanding.
Will Reger has been publishing poetry for about ten years, including four collections of poetry, the most recent of which is The Tangles. From 2019-21 he served as the Inaugural Poet Laureate for the city of Urbana, IL, and was recently nominated for the Prairie Rivers Network River Steward Award for organizing a poetry reading and art exhibit with a focus on East Central Illinois waterways.