By: Melissa Evans
here
deliquesce
here deliquescing heat
hustled by the moor’s bold breath
has brittled this dale to dust here
fell blisters sketched across the rubbed-out land
heave of soils swelling high and wide as ocean roll
here sun washes white every
thing
blanking out its own zealous burn
and through this bristling scrub two flame heads flicker
flit
pecking through vast drifts of heather forged bronze
they’re not a pair
their same-sized lekking depicts not-a-pair
but a pair
stilled
feathered nostrils toes feathered blue-clawed
feathered wings white-specked as a painter’s smock
half-matched half-bright against
the rusted char
I’d like to think they’ll flicker tints over this spike scarred ground
nurture it into soft purple down again
but everything will grow
in spite of their chunter
Melissa is an editor based in Oxford. She is interested in places where arts and science intersect and, in particular, in how the brain perceives and produces creative works.