The New Jet
Oz Hardwick
Times have changed, and the fox fur stole my grandmother’s ghost once wore is no longer acceptable, so now she sports a live fox around her lacy shoulders. It’s a talking point when she waits for the bus or picks up her groceries from the pannier market, and young mothers lift nervous-but-smiling children to ruffle its russet head. Naturally, there are some who tut and grumble that this is no life for a fox, but the fox himself is fine, and to all who’ll listen—for the fox, of course, has learned to speak—he’ll tell them of his long-ago, of fear in the shadows and the haunting cry of hounds, and of horns tearing the Sun from every dawn. Meanwhile, my grandmother nods, her jet eyes twinkling as she feeds him morsels of choice chicken. It’s like something from a story, she says. With a happy ending, says the fox.
OZ HARDWICK is a European prose poet, whose work has been widely published in international journals and anthologies. He has published “maybe fifteen?” full collections and chapbooks, most recently Retrofuturism for the Dispossessed (Hedgehog Poetry Press, 2024). Oz is Professor of Creative Writing at Leeds Trinity University.