Cinnabar

by Miranda Cichy

You might ask why this ragwort
finds itself piped
with striped icing –
liquorice and caramel
slinking in sync.

Why the eye snags
on that which harms it,
a police-tape of caterpillar
drawing lines
through the day.

Soon they’ll be gone
and the field will rise with moths,
vampires and Valentines –
the heart-splintered
shock of them.

You might ask how a tiger
turns poppy.

 

Miranda Cichy’s poems have most recently been published in Curlew Calling (Numenius Press) and Nature and Regeneration (Corbel Stone Press). She is currently working towards a PhD in ecopoetry and bird extinction at the University of Glasgow.