Annie Forbes – Two poems

Kingfisher

Bolting from the undergrowth, gas flame blue
you tear into open space —

searing the daguerreotype trail
of your split-second determination

across the surface
of my gradually astonished eye.

 

 

Junornis

Rests,
between plate
and counterplate.

An ancient blossom
pressed
between shelves

and crumbled to nothing
by the first shocked breath
of discovery.

A callous annihilation,
even in light
of its accidental nature.

The bones
of those miniature wings,
unnaturally splayed—

the scrambled stalks
of a being
locked in its death.

Life
evoked only
in the gesture of flight.

 

Anna Forbes is originally from Edinburgh. She spent time living in Ireland, and currently studies literature at King’s College London. Her most recent poetry considers processes of nature and memory.