prose poem: a gentle warning

the window in the loft was half open tilting in at perhaps 45 degrees when outside it appeared a flapping tapping thwacking bird an owl or an eagle its wings brushing up under the window pane followed by its feathered body getting stuck beneath the glass with nowhere to go but inside into the room and alighting on the office blue carpet quite peaceful for a second but barely a second for I had already gone for it one hand across its back the other grabbing its beak which cracked and snapped in my twisting grip as I woke up and lay in bed wondering about the dream and what had made me lunge so desperately so brutal in fear perhaps of what it might do assuming it would panic and go for me first in that split second vision I had of it squawking and pecking and the feel of its wing bones beating which I could not allow which is why I crushed it before any of it came to pass when in fact it had simply landed quietly on the carpet one second and had not even thought about what it would do in the next second it would never reach being by then squeezed to death