Here we watch a zebra at the edge of a field, standing perfectly still. The repeated "Waiting . . ." stretches the moment out, so we feel the held breath and the tension of not knowing what comes next. Then a snort and a twitch of the tail break the stillness, and the animal's vision seems to fall apart. The "whirling Rorschach tests" suggest a blur of shapes and patterns, and the crossing eyes show how hard it is to make sense of it all.
The poem never names the threat, which keeps us as uncertain as the zebra. The speaker seems to stay outside the animal, observing it closely rather than stating a feeling. The mood is tense, jittery and a little eerie. The final lines turn the scene into a strange lesson: "Surprise. Confusion" are called "the keys to survival." Judging by the title and imagery, the zebra's stripes and dizzied sight may be part of how it survives, since confusion becomes a kind of defense.