The Translucent

'No heart, no brain, a primitive nervous system'.
Well that’s exactly what I’d say about you lot!
Hell, I should be on Chesil beach in the primordial crystalline pools of my ancestors.
But here I am suspended in black and getting grief.
So you want to know - really know - what life is?
Your proposed tests will get you nowhere.
The microscope lies.

I am life. It prickles through me.
I am the start of the universe,
and you want to dissect me.
I am translucent,
upstream from form.
Solid enough, but nothing sticks.
Especially your concepts.

I am the newest, the only-just-here. The most beautiful.
Relaxed. Poised. Ready.
I’m you before you had a face.

Stop this weighty analysis
You might see the show.
My nerves prickle with pleasure.
I light up.
But you’re not looking.