Say the trees sink around you 

like sunlit snow and now 

you’re the tallest thing

in the forest. Could you open yourself

to rain, make your feet like roots

like they did –

could birds

could bugs make homes in you

make holes in your skin and lungs

for their young? Back home

you love like it’s nothing,

walk pavements so your body

is a barrier between him

and the road,

empty the dishwasher

without making a fuss. So it’s the hummingbird

flitting impossibly

with his florid beard of fuchsia

that makes you notice how this place

is so without you

even with you crouched here,

your hands meshed

lewdly with the dirt,

tame amidst the buzzing lichen. 

© 

Evan Murtagh is a Birmingham-based poet currently studying for an MA in Creative Writing at The University of 

Birmingham. His work explores nature and the supernatural, and all the places where the two overlap. 

tame amidst the buzzing lichen.