a moment kept 

the fox and i
shared one glance
i think about it all the time
when his eyes met mine
something twined us
maybe it was our pain,
and once the moment was over
he disappeared into the fields
i never saw him again;
but i think about it all the time
a moment kept that cannot be stolen
from me—
i wonder if that little red fox
still haunts the fields
a ghost of my past reminding me
i am stronger now
than i was then.

Linda M. Crate’s poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. She has six published chapbooks A Mermaid Crashing Into Dawn (Fowlpox Press – June 2013), Less Than A Man (The Camel Saloon – January 2014), If Tomorrow Never Comes (Scars Publications, August 2016), My Wings Were Made to Fly (Flutter Press, September 2017), splintered with terror (Scars Publications, January 2018), more than bone music (Clare Songbirds Publishing, March 2019), and one micro-chapbook Heaven Instead (Origami Poems Project, May 2018). She is also the author of the novel Phoenix Tears (Czykmate Books, June 2018).