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.
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