Topher Shields

Fox Testament

In the hollows,
frost-laced stems quiver—
fur’s shadow, wing’s ember,
sharing the same breath.

Not fox, not beetle,
but the tremor
that births them both:
a hymn of claws,
of burning pinions
passing through
the thickets unseen.

With foxes I must 
become the fox. 

I take his pelt 
with cunning, 
with reverence.

Beneath each leaf-vein 
runs frost—
the hidden artery of earth,
her heart still beating:
feral, unsung.

The soil remembers 
what maps forget:
roots beyond titles, 
the burrow’s grammar 
older than speech.

What claws the dark 
leaves no surface trace, 
yet inscribes its law 
in marrow, in stone.

What endures in margins:
a sudden flare of red fur
vanishing in grass.

The loom uncharted, 
a testimony neither gone 
nor nameless.

I remember you. 
I name you. 
I do not let you die.

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Topher Shields is a queer poet from Aotearoa New Zealand. His work has appeared in The Dewdrop and Cathexis Northwest Press. He writes from the intersection of faith, fracture and transformation.