Not the Next Living Thing

by Lucy Pagerey-Grey

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 my 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.

Three Thirty Three

by Lucy Pagerey-Grey

It is enough to see and not to wish.
Because the wish is still there –
It will always be there,
Like the numbers that are nowhere
And yet so easily grasped –
Desire is there giving
Birth to each minute.
And though in the lucky glance
Your watch may offer coincidence cubed,
Want is in them all,
And the wish never stops.

The Day Before Thursday

by Lucy Pagerey-Grey

it’s funny, really,
to look at the mountains…
to just think about
looking at mountains
when you are inside a building
sitting next to a calendar
with a watch on your wrist…
to remind yourself that
tomorrow is thursday,
perhaps the thousandth thursday
you’ve been around here
looking at mountains
and buildings and calendars,
thinking about them, and
thinking about yourself
thinking about them.