A Rare Thing
Rent from DeepDyve- A Rare Thing
She sits in the yard and cannot believe her good luck: a fox has come up close and touches his nose to her foot. She sees his face, his eyes so round and wild with having to be alone, having to eat and sleep on the run.
and now you stay on the run from a rare leukemia, eyes wild with all you know, and all you cannot know. You sit in the yard with the man you love and watch the sun go down, you stay late until stars come out. It is what you know about already: these stars, this sun, the night and its cricket sounds, the fox that kissed your feet in worship. But it is you that worships, it is you that knows what a rare thing it is to be alive in this world, to touch gratefulness in every living creature.
And we, who know you, hang around— just in case we might also see something wild that dares to come close, or to see you in your elemental state of grace, speaking in tongues to the world, speaking the rare language of love—primitive and forever. [End Page 93]
Elizabeth Cox was raised on the Baylor School campus in Chattanooga, as the headmaster’s daughter. While doing graduate work with Fred Chappell at U.N.C.-G., her first story was published and then reprinted in two anthologies. She currently shares an endowed chair in creative writing at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, with her husband, Michael Curtis, an editor at The Atlantic. She is the author of a story collection and four novels, the most recent being The Slow Moon.
