Marge Piercy

Marge Piercy has published 17 poetry books, including What Are Big Girls Made Of, Colors Passing Through Us, and most recently, The Crooked Inheritance, all from Knopf, and in March the second volume of new and selected poems The Hunger Moon. Her 17 novels include Woman on the Edge of Time, He, She and It, and most recently, Sex Wars. Sleeping With Cats is her memoir.

A Couple of Meetings

Last russet afternoon I came upon
a doe and she permitted me.
I remained still and so did she.
Then she resumed nibbling birch

leaves while I spent all my patience
watching. At twilight I met
a fox all ruddy and twitching
her plumy tail. She was about

to pounce on an invisible mouse,
then carry it off in her teeth.
When I am accepted by the others
the pure ones who have never

destroyed the moist green world
it is what I know of prayer. Amein.