Not the Next Living Thing

A square of light
On bushes is
Mistaken for a deer
And then mistaken for nothing.

Mind goes blank
As a pane of milk.
I record muscles’ recourse –

Knife edge of alarm
And then
None at all.

So this,
I think with the unanimal brain,
This is what it was like,
Waiting out all the old years
For meat to come along

For the membrane to pale
And then, of a sudden,
Break.