"The baseboards can always be painted over."
The sentence played over and over again in Margaret's head. The real estate agent had muttered it innocently under her breath, but it stuck with he
...
[+]
I have seen this movie before,
I know how it ends, with troops in the streets,
and the charred bones of buildings,
so I turn away from the ruthless images,
and, just as quietly as I can, lean
on the railing of the back deck
and wait for the gray fox to appear
from the dark tangled underbrush
into an evanescent strip of bright sunlight.