Two poems by Lisa Kelly

from Scavenger: 8/06/25

Squinting through the trees, early evening, I spot a strange
creature with a lump bobbing on its rump. My brain
adjusting to what my eyes message, I realise the odd
vision is of a magpie picking ticks off a muntjac fawn.
Entranced by this mutualistic relationship, I watch,
not moving, until the magpie flies off the meal-ticket
grazing its way towards the undergrowth. Cattle
egrets, oxpeckers, jackdaws, crows and magpies
reap the rewards of scavenging or scratching an itch.

from Scavenger: 24/06/25

Scaevola must live up to its brand name of ‘Fancy Fantasy’.
Care label says ‘Protect from frost’ but right now I must
attend to its burning need for water. Can it survive extremes? Artist,
Vittorio Maria Bigari, painted The Trial of Mucius Scaevola, now
exhibited in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It depicts Roman
nobleman Scaevola thrusting his right hand in the fire —
giving the Etruscan invaders proof he couldn’t be thwarted. But flames
eat flesh. Left-handed is derived from the Latin word scaevus; and so, I
read how Fancy Fantasy’s petals survive like five fingers of a left hand.

Lisa Kelly’s The House of the Interpreter (Carcanet) was a PBS Summer 2023 Recommendation. Shortlisted for the 2024 Forward Prize for Best Single Poem - Written, she was a 2025 judge. She is an AHRC-funded PhD researcher at the University of Birmingham, exploring the climate crisis through British Sign Language. Lisa Kelly