A Secret Blink

The squirrel had been hollowed out only skull, skin and bones remained. I have learned to inspect the dead. Physical remains have secrets for the living. In Kentucky I watched a hunter ‘dress’ a deer. The warm meat fell apart as if cooperating under his skilled knife work. While he cut he spoke of last meals and old wounds; of the age and fitness of the animal. This squirrel had not died of age, a raptor had mauled and dropped it as fresh carrion for it and other’s. The eye-sockets of the cadaver had filled with recent rain a ray of sunlight gleamed - made the skull blink. I stage-blinked back. Post-mortem blinks are a curtain-call. For none know how or when on that dire brink, if we are left with one last wink from the very knife-edge of life.