What life feels like

 

If you’ve ever cut open a fresh kill on a brisk winter day, 

you know what life feels like. Warm your ungloved hands 

behind the kidneys as you lift to release the organs f

rom the hollow that held so much so neatly inside. 

Slipperiness is just a gift, so you don’t remember 

the heavy iron smell in the rising steam.

 

Life is simple, here one minute and gone another, 

an eye clouding as travel requires. Each last glance 

a pain, causing a tear to form if not run. This tear 

might be an ooze of a plant cut from its stem, 

a trickle of a glacier, the morning mist. Nothing 

is ever quite ready to die.